
Class. 
Book 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



AN 



INTRODUCTION 

TO THE STUDY OF 

SHAKESPEARE 

/ BY 

HIRAM CORSON, LL.D., 

Professor of English Literature in the Cornell 
University. 




BOSTON: 

D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS. 

1889. 






Copyright, 1889, 
By Hiram Corson. 



Typography by J. S. Gushing & Co., Boston. 



^ PREFACE. 

The present work is an attempt to indicate to the student some 

lines of Shakespearian study which may serve to introduce him 

to the study of the Plays as plays. No one line is carried out to 

any extent ; but enough is presented, it is hoped, to enable the 

student, with the additional aid of such easily accessible sources 

are noted, to extend the several lines of study indicated. 

The commentaries presented on Romeo and JuHet, King John, 

uch Ado about Nothing, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Antony and 

•eopatra, aim chiefly to present the points of view which are 

d -manded, 7ne j'udice, for a proper appreciation of Shakespeare's 

^ neral attitude toward things, and his resultant dramatic art. 

le moral spirit with which he worked, as distinguished from a 

orahzing spirit, it is all-important to appreciate. His Plays 

rpass all those of the contemporary dramatists in their moral 

proportion — in the harmony which they exhibit with the eternal 

fitness of things — in their truthfulness in respect to the fatalism 

of overmastering passion. Herein consists their transcendent 

educating value. To come into the fullest possible sympathy 

with this moral proportion, with this harmony and truthfulness, 

should be the highest aim of Shakespearian culture. 

The textual study of the Plays is abundantly provided for by 
numerous annotated editions, such as Rolfe's, Hudson's, the 
Clarendon Press, etc. These scholarly editions will not soon be 
superseded by others having the same general purpose. 

HIRAM CORSON. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGES 



Introduction (Shakespeare in general: his personal history; his 

contemporary reputation; features of his dramatic art; etc.) . 3-24 

The Shakespeare-Bacon Controversy 25-31 

The Authenticity of the First Folio (the dedicatees, the Earl 
of Pembroke and the Earl of Montgomery; the dedicators, John 
Heminge and Henry Condell; the authors of the Commenda- 
tory Verses, etc.) 32-47 

The Chronology of the Plays 48-50 

Shakespeare's Verse 5^-82 

Distinctive Use of Verse and Prose in Shakespeare's Plays . 83-98 
The Latin and the Anglo-Saxon Elements of Shakespeare's 
English, and the Monosyllabic Vocabulary, in their 
Relations to the Intellectual, the ExMOtional, and the 

Dramatic 99-11 1 

Romeo and Juliet 1 12-144 

The Commentary on Romeo and Juliet 145-157 

King John 158-175 

Much Ado about Nothing 176-193 

Hamlet 194-222 

The Witch Agency in Macbeth , ' 223-243 

Lady Macbeth's Relations to Macbeth 244-251 

Antony and Cleopatra 252-315 

Jottings on the Text of Hamlet 316-357 

Miscellaneous Notes 358-377 

Examination Questions 379-397 



AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY 
OF SHAKESPEARE. 



INTRODUCTION 



ON the verso of the title-page, and facing the first page of the 
Preface, of James Orchard HaUiwell-Phillipps's " Outhnes of 
the Life of Shakespeare," is a woodcut, representing the scattered 
bits of foundation wall which remain of Shakespeare's house, in 
Stratford-upon-Avon, knov^m as New Place. In the opening of 
the Preface, the author remarks, 'vsnth a touch of pathos, "the 
remains of New Place, a partial sketch of which is engraved on 
the opposite leaf, are t}Toical of the fragments of the personal his- 
tory of Shakespeare which have hitherto been discovered. In this 
respect the great dramatist participates in the fate of most of his 
literar}' contemporaries, for if a collection of the known facts relat- 
ing to all of them were tabularly arranged, it would be found that 
the number of the ascertained particulars of his life reached at 
least the average. At the present day, 'vs'ith biography carried to 
a wasteful and ridiculous excess, and Shakespeare, the idol not 
merely of a nation but of the educated world, it is difficult to 
realize a period when no interest was taken in the events of the 
Hves of authors, and when the great poet himself, notwdthstanding 
the immense popularity of some of his works, was held in no gen- 
eral reverence. It must be borne in mind that actors then occu- 
pied an inferior position in societ}-, and that in many quarters even 
the vocation of a dramatic writer was considered scarcely respec- 
table. The inteUigent appreciation of genius by individuals was 
not sufficient to neutralize in these matters the effect of pubUc 
opinion and the animosity of the religious world ; all circumstances 
thus uniting to banish general interest in the history of persons con- 



4 INTR OD UCTION. 

nected in any way with the stage. This biographical indifference 
continued for many years, and long before the season arrived for a 
real curiosity to be taken in the subject, the records from which 
alone a satisfactory memoir could have been constructed had dis- 
appeared. At the time of Shakespeare's decease, non-political 
correspondence was rarely preserved, elaborate diaries were not 
the fashion, and no one, excepting in semi-apocryphal collections 
of jests, thought it worth while to record many of the sayings and 
doings, or to delineate at any length the characters, of actors and 
dramatists, so that it is generally by the merest accident that 
particulars of interest respecting them have been recovered." 

But meagre as our knowledge remains of the external life of 
Shakespeare, after all the untiring researches of the last, and more 
especially of the present century, we, nevertheless, thanks to those 
researches, possess a kind of knowledge quite as desirable as any 
knowledge of his personal history, desirable as that is — more so 
than that of any other great author in the world's literatures. The 
material for this knowledge was collected by Dr. C. M. Ingleby, and 
published in 1874, in a volume entitled " Shakespeare's Centurie 
of Prayse ; being materials for a history of opinion on Shakespeare 
and his works, culled from writers of the first century after his 
rise," that is, from 1591, the 27th year of the poet's hfe, to 1693. 
These materials are far more abundant than any who have not 
made a special study of the subject, and who hold the traditional 
opinion that little or nothing has been delivered of Shakespeare 
by his contemporaries, and the two generations immediately suc- 
ceeding his death, would be apt to suppose. The Index to 
Authors cited, contains 116 names; many of them being those of 
prominent writers of the period covered by the work. Several 
additions have been made to these, in the 2d edition, revised 
by Lucy Toulmin Smith, and published by the New Shakspere 
Society, 1879. The "Centurie of Prayse " furnishes " both positive 
and negative evidence as to the estimation in which Shakespeare 
was held by the writers of the century during which his fame was 
germinating; viz., 1592-1693. . . . The testimonies bear witness 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

to subjective opinions, preparing the way for the objective judg- 
ment which has seated Shakespeare on the throne of poets." 

We really know more of Shakespeare than we know of any other 
author of the time, either in English or in European literature, ivho 
was not connected with state affairs. The personal history of a 
mere author, and especially of a playwright, as a dramatic author, 
whatever his ability, was frequently called, with no influence at 
Court, was not considered of sufficient importance to be recorded 
in those days, when the Court was everything, and the individual 
man without adventitious recommendations, was nothing. 

Already in 1598, when Shakespeare was but 34 years of age, a 
clergyman, Francis Meres, educated at the University of Cam- 
bridge, in a work entitled " Palladis Tamia," ranked Shakespeare 
with the greatest poets and dramatists of Greece and Rome. He 
would hardly have done this if Shakespeare was so obscure and so 
little estimated at the time as to cause such adjudgment as he 
expresses, to be laughed at. Meres, as his book shows, was a man 
of great scholastic learning ; and scholastic learning in those days 
meant a reverential estimate of the great classics of Greece and 
Rome. 

Higher still is the testimony to his greatness borne by Ben 
Jonson, in his Hues in the ist Foho : — 

To the memory of my beloved, the Author Mr. William Shake- 
speare: and what he hath left us. 

To draw no enny* (Shakespeare) ofi thy name. 
Am I thus afnple to thy Booke, and Fame : 

While I confess e thy writings to be such. 
As neither Man, nor Muse, can praise too much. 

^Tis true, and all ?ne7zs suffrage. But these wayes 
Were not the paths I meant vnto thy praise : 



* "*To draw no envy,' etc., certainly docs not mean what the editor of 
Brome's " Five New Plays," 1659 (To the Reader, p. 4), imputes to it; as if 
Ben thought to lower Shakespeare by extravagantly praising him. He meant 



INTRODUCTION. 

For seeliest Ignorance on these may light. 

Which, when it sounds at best, but eccho'^s right; 
Or blinde affection, which doth jieVe aduance 

The truth, but gropes, and vrgeth all by chance ; 
Or crafty Malice, might pretend this praise, 

And thinke to ruine, where it seeni'd to raise. 
These are, as some infamous Baud, or Whore, 

Should praise a Matron. What could hurt her more 
But thou art proofe against them, and indeed 

Aboue th" ill fortune of them, or the need. 
I, therefore will begin. Soule of the Age I 

The applause ! delight ! the wonder of our Stage ! 
My Shakespeare, rise ; I will not lodge thee by 

Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lye 
A little further, to make thee a roome : * 

Thou art a Moniment, without a tombe. 
And art aline still, while thy Booke doth line. 

And we haue wits to read, and praise to giue. 
That I not 7nixe thee so, 7ny braine excuses ; 

I meane with great, but disproportion' d Muses : f 
For, if I thought my iudgeme?it were of yeeres, 

I should commit thee surely with thy peeres. 
And tell, how farre thou didstst our Lily out-shine. 

Or sporting Kid, or Marlowes mighty line. 
And though thou hadst small Latine, and lesse Greeke, \ 



to say, that while Ignorance, Affection, or Malice, by excessive, indiscriminate, 
or unjust praise, would be sure to provoke the detraction of Envy, 'these ways 
were not the paths I meant unto thy praise'; for he could with full knowledge 
and strict impartiality award him the highest praise that could be expressed." 
— Dr. Ingleby, in his " Shakespeare's Centurie of Prayse." 

* " ' I will not lodge thee,' etc., refers to Basse's lines, and means that he 
will not class Shakespeare with Chaucer, Spenser, and Beaumont, because he 
is out of all proportion greater than they — men ' of yeeres ' or * for an age.' 
Nor will he praise him by declaring how far he excelled Lily, Kid, and Mar- 
low. Shakespeare, indeed, like them (yet beyond them), was for the age in 
which he flourished; but he M^as also for all time, and not of zxi age." — Dr. 
Ingleby, in his " Shakespeare's Centurie of Prayse." f Poets. 

X "' And though thou hadst,' etc. Here hadsf. is the subjunctive. [?] The 



* INTR OD UC TION. 

From thence to honour thee, I would not seeke 
For names', but call forth thimd'ring y^schilus, 

Euripides, and Sophocles to vs, 
Paccuuius, Accius, him of Cordoua dead. 

To life againe, to heare thy Buskin"^ tread. 
And shake a Stage: Or, when thy Sockes\ were on, 

Leaue thee alone, for the comparison 
Of all, that insolent Greece, or haughtie Rome 

sent forth, or since did frotn their ashes come. 
Triumph, 7Hy Britaine, thou hast one to showe. 

To whom all Scenes % of Europe hojnage owe. 
He was not of an age, but for all tifue! 

Afid all the Muses still were in their prime. 
When like Apollo he came forth to warjne 

Otir eares, or like a Mercury to char me! 
Nature her selfe was proud of his designes, 

And io/d to weare the dressing of his lines ! 
Which were so I'ichly spun, and wouen so fit. 

As, since, she will vouchsafe no other Wit. 
The merry Greeke, tart Aristophanes, 

Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please ; 
But antiquated, and deserted lye 

As they were not of Natures family. 
Yet must I not giue Nature all: Thy Art, 

My gentle Shakespeare, must enioy a part. 



passage may be thus paraphrased: 'Even if thou hadst httle scholarship, I 
would not seek to honour thee by calhng thee, as others have done, Ovid, 
Plautus, Terence, etc., i.e., by the names of the classical poets, but would 
rather invite them to witness how far thou didst outshine them. Ben does 
not assert that Shakespeare had 'small Latin and less Greek,' as several 
understand him, though doubtless, compared with Ben's finished scholarship, 
Shakespeare's was small; but, that the lack of that accomplishment could 
only redound to Shakespeare's honour, who could be Greek or Roman, ac- 
cording to the requirements of the play and the situation." — Dr. Ingleby, in 
his " Shakespeare's Centurie of Prayse." 

* Buskin, by metonymy, for Tragedy. 

t Sockes, by metonymy, for Comedy. 

\ Scenes, dramatic Stages- 



INTRODUCTION. 

For though the Poets matter, Nature be, 

His Art, doth giue the fashion. And, that he,* 
Who casts t to write a lining line, must sweat, 

(such as thine are) and strike the second heat 
Vpon the Muses anuile: turne the same, 

{And hi7nselfe with it) that he thinkes to frame ; 
Or for the lawrell, he may gaine a scor7ie. 

For a good Poet's made, as well as borne. 
And such wert thou. Looke how the fathers face 

Lines in his issue, euen so, the race 
Of Shakespeares minde, and manners brightly shines 

In his well torned, and true-filed lines : % 
In each of which, he seemes to shake a Lance, % 

As brajidishH at the eyes of Ignorance. 
Sweet Swan of Auon ! what a sight it were 

To see thee in our waters yet appeare. 
And fnake those fights vpon the bankes of Thames, 1 1 

That so did take Eliza, ^ atid our lames ! 
But stay, I see thee in the Hemisphere 

Aduafic^d, and made a Cojtstellation there I 
Shine forth, thou Starr e of Poets, and with rage,** 

Or influence, chide, or cheer e the drooping Stage', 
Which, since thy flight fro hence, hath mourn'^d like night. 

And despair es day, but for thy Volumes light. 



* Man. t Casts (in his mind), thinks, purposes. 

X " As Epius Stolo said, that the Muses would speake with Plautus tongue, 
if they would speake Latin : so I say that the Muses would speak with Shake- 
speares y?;/*? yf/^^ phrase, if they would speake English." — Francis Meres, 
" Palladis Tamia," 1598. 

§ An evident play on the name of Shakespeare. So in Thomas Bancroft's 
"Two Bookcs of Epigrammes, and Epitaphs," 1639, No. 119, To Shakespeare : 

" Thou hast so us'd thy Pen, (or shocke thy Speare) 
That Poets startle, nor thy wit come neare." 

II Bankes of Thames, on which the Globe Theatre stood. 
1 Eliza, Queen EHzabeth. 
** Bage and influence are used here in their astrological senses : chide and 
cheere refer, respectively, to ra^e and influence. 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

Ben Jonson was not a man given to excessive praise of others : 
he was, in fact, very chary of his praise, as great egotists generally 
are ; and he was the greatest egotist of his time. He certainly 
would not have indulged in praise, however sincerely he could 
have done so, which would have been regarded as merely perfunc- 
tory and conventional. The lines have a ring of unquestionable 
sincerity. And they are remarkable lines. Every time I read 
them, they seem more remarkable then they ever did before. The 
line, " He was not of an age, but for all time," has been generally 
understood to express Shakespeare's universality. But what is 
properly meant by universality, is, perhaps, not always understood. 
Ruskin has noted it as " a constant law that the greatest men, 
whether poets or historians, live entirely in their own age, and 
that the greatest fruits of their work are gathered out of their own 
age. Dante paints Italy in the 13th century; Chaucer, England 
in the 14th; Massaccio, Florence in the 15th ; Tintoretto, Venice 
in the i6th; — all of them utterly regardless of anachronism and 
minor error of every kind, but getting always vital truth out of the 
vital present. If it be said that Shakespeare wrote perfect his- 
torical plays on subjects belonging to the preceding centuries, I 
answer, that they are perfect plays just because there is no care 
about centuries in them, but a Hfe which all men recognize for the 
human life of all time ; and this it is, not because Shakespeare 
sought to give universal truth, but because, painting honestly and 
completely from the men about him, he painted that human nature 
which is, indeed, constant enough, a rogue in the 15 th century 
being, at heart, what a rogue is in the 19th and was in the 
1 2th; and an honest or a knightly man being, in like manner, 
very similar to other such at any other time. And the work of 
these great idealists is, therefore, always universal ; not because // 
is not portrait, but because it is complete portrait down to the 
heart, which is the same in all ages : and the work of the mean 
idealists is not universal, not because it is portrait, but because it 
is /^^^ portrait, — of the outside, the manners and the dress, not of 
the heart. Thus Tintoret and Shakespeare paint, both of them, 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

simply Venetian and English nature as they saw it in their time, 
down to the root ; and it does for all time ; but as for any care to 
cast themselves into the particular ways and tones of thought, 
or custom, of past time in their historical work, you will find it 
in neither of them, nor in any other perfectly great man that I 
know of." 

We may take Ben Jonson's estimate of Shakespeare, not only 
as perfectly sincere on his part, but as representing the opinion of 
the great poet by the best judges of the time. 

Mr. Gerald Massey, in his " Secret Drama of Shakespeare's 
Sonnets," etc. 1872, p. 528, remarks that, " Harvey's lusty reveille 
and Ben Jonson's eulogy notwithstanding, it is quite demon- 
strable that Shakespeare's contemporaries had no adequate con- 
ception of what manner of man or majesty of mind were amongst 
them. We know him better than they did." 

That, perhaps, though said with so much assurance, is question- 
able. The fact must not be overlooked, however ungracious it 
may be to the patient and laborious delvers in Shakespearian lore, 
that much of the study devoted to Shakespeare, in these days, con- 
sists largely of a peeping and botanizing that are really not essen- 
tial to a full appreciation of his dramatic power, which is, after all, 
the one great thing needful. There is reason to believe that there 
are many mere scholars at the present day, whose Shakespearian 
learning, extensive and thorough as it may be, in respect to edi- 
tions, and texts, and readings, and the commentary which, during 
the last hundred and fifty years and more, has gathered around 
Shakespeare, as the desert sands around the Egyptian sphinx, 
does not help them much to a higher appreciation of this power ; 
other things being equal, they would have quite as much without 
it. I would not depreciate this kind of learning ; " may it mix 
with men and prosper ! " but, in many cases, it does not justify 
scholars, when passing opinions on the contemporary apprecia- 
tion of Shakespeare, in saying, as Mr. Massey says, that the men of 
his time had no adequate conception of what manner of man or 
majesty of mind were amongst them, and that we know him better 



INTR OD UC TION. 1 1 



than they did. He should have stated in what respects we know 
him better than they did. In some respects we do. That he was 
not appreciated in certain directions as he is now, is undeniable ; 
but that he was even popularly appreciated, in his own day, in a 
dramatic direction, and that, too, to an even fuller extent than he 
is now, is equally undeniable. It is not improbable that the peo- 
ple who attended the Globe Theatre, even the inferior sort, were 
more susceptible, got more of the real thing, than the ordinary 
attendants of theatres in our days, when so much, too, is addressed 
to the eye which was not so addressed in Shakespeare's time, but 
had to be imagined. Now our stage carpentry leaves nothing to 
be imagined. We shut off imagination in earliest childhood, in 
having our children's dolls made to squeak when they are 
squeezed, and to say mamma, and to creep along the floor, moved 
by a wound-up spring in the stomach. The rag doll was much 
better, as it gave scope to a child's imagination, and children 
loved it more on that very account. 

There must have been very superior acting in Shakespeare's 
time. And the great impersonator, in his own time, of the lead- 
ing characters in his Plays, Richard Burbadge, the poet's Hfe-long 
friend, must have had his valuable guidance in his impersonations. 
And these impersonations must have been adequately appreciated. 
There are abundant evidences of a general susceptibility, in the 
times of Shakespeare, hardly inferior to that which the Greek peo- 
ple must have possessed in the best days of their drama ; a sus- 
ceptibiUty which the growth of general and " useful" knowledge, 
and a more rigid conventionahsm in society, have done much to 

deaden. 

It is quite impossible that any contributions can be made to our 
present knowledge of the external life of Shakespeare : and with 
that limited knowledge we must rest content; especially as an 
infinitely better knowledge is within our reach. We can drop the 
questions as to what Shakespeare did as a boy and a young man ; 
as to whether he were a butcher-boy, or a schoolmaster, or a lav/- 
yer's clerk, or what not. How his soul must have been attuned, 



1 2 INTR OD UCTIOM. 

is an infinitely higher question — a question, too, which can be 
answered with greater certainty than can the other and less im- 
portant questions as to how he was outwardly occupied as a boy 
and a young man. It is a question, in fact, which can be abso- 
lutely answered. "The soul," says George H. Calvert, in his 
' Shakespeare : a biographic aesthetic study,' " while laying the 
foundations of greatness, keeps its own counsel ; and what it had 
been doing and preparing is only revealed by the completed work. 
The Tempest, and Lear, and Julius Caesar tell us, and tell us with 
the peal of resounding clarions, that Shakespeare was a wonderful 
child, and from them, and only from them, can this be learnt ; so 
that we now know about the child William what his own father 
and mother had no inkling of" (pp. 25, 26). 

Much has been said of the impersonality of the Plays. They 
are, indeed, wonderfully impersonal in one sense, namely, that 
each and every character speaks and acts from the standpoint of 
his own personality ; but they are, at the same time, the most 
autobiographical compositions, in the very highest sense of the 
word, that have ever been produced. No one who has communed 
with them for years, can have any doubt of this ; can doubt that 
the benign aura exhaled from all the Plays was infused into them 
from the glorious nature of their author — a nature more fully in 
harmony with the soul of things than has ever been exhibited by 
any other of the sons of men of whom we have record. 

It has been well said, and the idea has been eloquently ex- 
panded, by Whipple, that " the measure of a man's individuality 
is his creative power ; and all that Shakespeare created, he indi- 
vidually included." * 

Could we have possibly known more of the real man Shake- 
speare, the real ?nan, more of that immanent something, that 
mystery of personality, that " innermost of the inmost, most inte- 
rior of the interne," as Mrs. Browning designates the mystery of 



♦ See " The Literature of the Age of EUzabeth." By Edwin P. Whipple, 
Boston: 1869. pp. 36 ^/ j^'^l'. 



INTRODUCTION. 



13 



personality, of "the hidden Soul/' — which is projected into, and 
constitutes the soul of the plays — could we, I say, have possibly 
known more of this, than we know from his Plays, even if he had 
written for us his own biography, as Alfieri, or St. Augustine, or 
Goethe, wrote his, or even if he had had a Boswell to record his 
life as minutely as " sleek wheedling James " recorded Samuel 
Johnson's? Could we, indeed, have known as much of the real 
man as we now know? Would not a full record of the man's 
outer life, with all the short- comings, distortions, obliquities, and 
imperfections of judgment, and prejudices in one direction and 
another, which, as a human production, would necessarily have 
marked it, even if it had been written by a personal and intimate 
friend, and that friend the best conditioned to appreciate him, 
have tended rather to obscure the real man, as he is breathed 
forth from the Plays and the Sonnets, than to reveal him more 
distinctly? There can be but httle doubt that such would have 
been the result. 

Shakespeare came into the world at a time the most favorable 
in human history for the exercise of great dramatic genius. No 
great genius was ever more favored than he by the circumstances of 
time and place. " His was an age full of dramatic elements ; rich 
in character and passion ; one of transition from old to new con- 
ditions of society, and containing the peculiarities of both ; one in 
which all the depths of human nature had just been stirred, and 
its strongest passions revealed ; and in which society had not yet 
arrived at that calm uniformity of manners which has, perhaps, 
weakened our sympathy with the expression of strong passion." * 

But these favoring circumstances did not make the genius of 
Shakespeare ; that was something entirely independent of them. 
They only stimulated it into activity, and determined the mode 
of its manifestation. The physiology, so to speak, of great works 



* "The Influence of Foreign Literature on English Literature." By Rev. 
James Byrne, M.A. (Dublin Afternoon Lectures on Literature and Art. 
3d Series.) 



14 



INTRODUCTION. 



of genius, can be explained, to some extent, by the circumstances 
of time and place — but not their essential life. That must come 
from the personality of the author ; and that personality is a mys- 
tery which philosophy cannot reach. 

Favored as Shakespeare was by the circumstances of his time, 
he, in spite of mere scholarship and learning, was the best edu- 
cated man that ever lived ; and by " best educated," should be 
understood, that his faculties, intellectual and spiritual, especially 
the latter, and all that enter into a personahty, had the fullest, and 
freest, and most harmonious play. Of no man in the history of the 
race can it be said that he attained to a completer command of 
his faculties than did Shakespeare. And this is why it may be 
said that he was the best educated man that ever lived, and most 
completely reahzed De Quincey's definition of a great scholar : 
" not one who depends simply on an infinite memory, but also on 
an infinite and electrical power of combination ; bringing together 
from the four winds, hke the angel of the resurrection, what else 
were dust from dead men's bones, into the unity of breathing 

life." 

" He of a temper was so absolute, 
As that it seemed, when nature him began, 
She meant to show, all that might be in man." * 

Out of this complete nature proceeded that ethical system, that 
sense of moral proportion, which all the Plays exhibit more or less 
distinctly. 

Shakespeare understood the meaning of true education as com- 
pared with mere learning ; and it appears that he came to this 
understanding very early. He no doubt voiced his own convictions 
in Love's Labor's Lost, A. L Sc. i. 55-93. Biron asks : 

What is the end of study? let me know. 

King. Why, that to know, which else we should not know. 
Biron. Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common sense? 
King. Ay, that is study's godlike recompense. 



* Drayton's " The Barons' Wars," ed. of 1619. 



INTR ODUC TION. I 5 

Biron. Come on then; I will swear to study so, 
To know the thing I am forbid to know : 
As thus, — To study where I well may dine, 

When I to feast expressly am forbid ; 
Or, study where to meet some mistress fine, 

When mistresses from common sense are hid : 
Or, having sworn too hard-a-keeping oath. 
Study to break it, and not break my troth. 
If study's gain be thus, and this be so. 
Study knows that, which yet it doth not know : 
Swear me to this, and I will ne'er say, no. 

King. These be the stops that hinder study quite. 
And train our intellects to vain delight. 

Biron. Why, all delights are vain ; and that most vain. 
Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain : 
As, painfully to pore upon a book, 

To seek the light of truth ; while truth the while 
Doth falsely bhnd the eyesight of his look : 

Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile : 
So, ere you find where light in darkness lies, 
Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes. 
Study me how to please the eye indeed. 

By fixing it upon a fairer eye ; 
Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed, 

And give him light that it was blinded by. 
Study is like the heaven's glorious sun, 

That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks : 
Small have continual plodders ever won. 

Save base authority from others' books. 
These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights, 

That give a name to every fixed star. 
Have no more profit of their shining nights. 

Than those that walk, and wot not what they are. 
Too much to know is, to know nought but fame ; 
And every godfather can give a name. 

Shakespeare must have felt his superiority to the merely learned 
men with whom he came in contact, and must soon have dis- 
covered that he drank from fountains of which they knew nothing. 



1 5 INTR OD UC TION. 

It is because he was the best educated man that ever lived that 
he is the greatest of the world's human teachers, and will continue 
such until a greater than he shall arise. When that will be, is, 
perhaps, more remote than the time which Ruskin fixed for another 
Turner. A young Scottish art-student of his, as Ruskin himself 
tells us, once asked him, after being praised for his work, " Do 
you think, sir, that I shall ever draw as well as Turner? " Ruskin 
replied, " It is more likely you should be made Emperor of all the 
Russias. There is a new Emperor every fifteen or twenty years, 
and, by a strange leap, and fortunate cabal, anybody might be 
made Emperor. But there is only one Turner in 500 years, and 
God decides, without any admission of auxihary cabal what piece 
of clay his soul is to be put in." 

In the whole history of the race, so far as we know it, there has 
been but one Shakespeare ; and the extent of that history will 
perhaps be repeated, before another appears who will recover the 
staff which he broke and buried certain fathoms in the earth, and 
the book which he drowned deeper than did ever plummet sound, 
when he abjured his wondrous magic. 

The study of his works, in its highest form, could be made, if 
properly pursued, to contribute to the stimulating, strengthening, 
and, what is most important of all, marshalling into more or less 
co-operative action, the moral, intellectual, emotional, analytic, and 
synthetic powers. It is especially the co-operative action of all our 
faculties which Shakespeare demands of us, for his best apprecia- 
tion, and it is in this that his educating power especially consists. 
I speak of course of a true study of Shakespeare, of Shakespeare 
as the master-^r//j-/ of the race ; and such study means, the grow- 
ing towards, I will not say the growing up to (that is quite impos- 
sible), the growing a little way towards, the manifold, complex, all- 
comprehensive soul-movement of the artist — a movement which 
carries with it, thought, emotion, imagination, fancy, humor, wit, 
pathos — a movement, in short, in which the entire personality is 
brought into play. This is what I mean by Shakespeare's being 
the master-d.x'iviX of the race ; for no other artist, either of ancient 



INTR OD UCTION. I / 

or modern times, ever worked with such a complete and harmo- 
nious co-operation of all the powers inherent in the human soul. 

" O, mighty poet ! " exclaims De Quincey, at the conclusion of 
his subtle analysis of the art-purpose of the knocking at the gate, 
after Macbeth has murdered his King, •' O, mighty poet ! Thy 
works are not as those of other men, simply and merely great 
works of art ; but are also like the phenomena of nature, like the 
sun and the sea, the stars and the flowers, — like frost and snow, 
rain and dew, hail-storm and thunder, which are to be studied with 
entire submission of our own faculties, and in the perfect faith that 
in them there can be no too much or too little, nothing useless or 
inert — but that, the further we press in our discoveries, the more 
we shall see proofs of design and self-supporting arrangement where 
the careless eye had seen nothing but accident." 

Shakespeare was of course perfectly well acquainted with the 
classical unities of action, time, and place, the first only of which 
(action), is an absolute dramatic-art principle; the others were 
originally due to the constitution of the Greek drama. In The 
Tempest, he has strictly observed them, more strictly than they 
are observed in some of the ancient dramas — in "The Suppliants" 
of Euripides, for example, in the "Trachiniae " of Sophocles, or the 
" Heauton-timoroumenos " (the Self-Tormentor) of Terence. The 
period of time covered by The Tempest is but little more than 
that required for the stage performance. The time, as noted by 
Prospero and Ariel, is about four hours. Shakespeare has also 
strictly observed the unities in the Comedy of Errors. The scene 
is confined to Ephesus, and the whole time of the dramatic action 
is comprised in one day, ending about 5 p.m.* But in The Winter's 
Tale, which was composed about the same time as The Tempest 
(and these two Plays were probably his last), he has utterly dis- 
regarded the unities in an actual sense, but he has nevertheless 



* See " A Time-Analysis of the Plots of Shakspere's Plays," by P. A. Daniel 
(Transactions of the New Shakspere Soc, 1877-9. Series I. Part II. pp. 117 
et seq.) . 



1 8 INTK OD UC TION. 

moulded the heterogeneous elements of whicli the Play is com- 
posed, into '* the unity of breathing life " — the only unity which, 
in itself considered, is worth anything in Art. 

A system of time and place, especially of time, that was suited 
to the narrower range of the ancient drama, was not suited to the 
vastly wider range of the modern romantic drama ; and Shake- 
speare, whose genius ever rose above arbitrary law and authority, 
and became law and authority to itself, had recourse to an expe- 
dient, worked out a dramatic time-system of liis own, and accord- 
ing to this system, as has been shown, he constructed most of his 
Plays. It might be characterized as a system of time-perspective, 
by which, when it is demanded by dramatic necessity, a long period 
of time, filled with many events, is made to impress as short, and 
a short period, as long. The sagacious critics to whom the dis- 
covery and exposition of this system of time-perspective were due, 
were the Rev. Nicholas John Halpin (a clergyman of the English 
Church, and a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin) , and Professor 
John Wilson (Christopher North). Each claimed the discovery 
as his own, and there is no evidence that either was indebted to 
the other, or to ai>y one else. But Mr. Halpin's exposition of it, 
is by far the fullest and clearest. He shows, with great subtlety, 
that Shakespeare, in his Plays, realizes in its fullest potential sense, 
the canon of the Roman Critic — iit pictora poesis (" Ars Poetica," 
V. 361). Professor Wilson first made known what he calls his 
" astounding discovery," in the 5th and 6th parts of Dies Boreales," 
which appeared in Blackwood's Magazine for Nov. 1849, and April, 
1850, applying his theory to Macbeth and Othello. Mr. Halpin 
was, without question, the earlier discoverer of this system of time- 
perspective, by many years ; but he had made it known only to a 
few friends, and did not publish his Time-Analysis of the Merchant 
of Venice until after Professor Wilson's first paper appeared in 
Blackwood for Nov. 1849. But he fully estabhshed the priority 
of his own discovery.* 



* See his letter addressed to the Editor of Blackwood's Magazine, dated 
Dublin, Nov. 12, 1849. 



INTRODUCTION. 



19 



The article entitled "Dramatic Time," in the "Shakespeare 
Key," by Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke, occupying 180 fine- 
type 8vo pages, presents an exhaustive collection of the passages in 
all the Plays which elucidate the time-scheme upon which Shake- 
speare worked. There is certainly no art-feature of the Plays more 
deeply interesting or more worthy a careful study. Professor Wil- 
son's Double-Time Analyses of Macbeth and Othello, and Mr. 
Halpin's Time-Analysis of the Merchant of Venice, should first be 
thoroughly understood before studying the article in "The Shake- 
speare Key." They have been reprinted in the New Shakspere 
Society's Transactions, 1875-6, pp. 349-412, and edited by Dr. 
C. M. Ingleby. 

Another feature of Shakespeare's Dramatic Art to which the 
student's attention should be given, and which contributes to 
what may be called the dramatic perspective, or in other words, 
constitutes the still background to what is dramatized, is the nar- 
rated element of the Plays, by which is meant all that is told or 
described by the characters in the Plays, instead of being sceni- 
cally or dramatically represented to the audience. This feature 
is an extremely interesting subject of study. Of course we find 
such an element in all the dramatic literature of the time, and, 
indeed, of all time. It is unavoidable. The Romantic Drama, 
with its rich variety of elements, and its wide scope, especially 
demanded it. But no other dramatist of the time has employed 
this told-element with an equal artistic skill, for the reason that 
Shakespeare was the greatest master of dramatic perspective. In 
mapping out a play, he must have considered what he would 
bring into the foreground through dramatization, and what he 
would throw into the background through narration on the part 
of his characters. Artistic symmetry demanded this ; and it was 
also necessary in order to secure effects which would be weakened 
by dramatically representing certain things. For example, in The 
Winter's Tale, it might be- supposed that the reconciliation, toward 
the end of the drama, of the two kings, Leontes and Polixines (so 
long parted by reason of the unfounded jealousy of Leontes) and 



20 INTRODUCTION. 

the identifying of the shepherdess Perdita as King Leontes' own 
daughter, should be dramatized. These incidents have great 
dramatic capabilities. But they are only related by eye-witnesses, 
in the 2d Scene of the 5th Act, the reason for which is readily 
noted. The reconciliation of the two kings, and the identifying 
of Perdita, come immediately before the true denouement of the 
drama, which we have in the 3d and last Scene of the 5 th Act, 
where PauHna shows to the two kings, and to Perdita, Florizel, and 
attendants, the putative statue of Hermione, which turns out to be 
the living Hermione herself. A scenic representation of what is 
related in the penultimate scene of the Play, would be most inar- 
tistic, as it would seriously weaken the effect of the crowning 
incident of the drama — the reanimation and restoration to hus- 
band and daughter, of the lovely, noble, and long-enduring Her- 
mione. But an inferior artist could hardly have resisted the temp- 
tation to represent scenically the impressive incidents which are 
related in the 2d Scene. 

Again, in the Merchant of Venice, when Shylock learns that Jes- 
sica has run away with a Christian, and carried off two sealed bags 
of ducats, and a rich store of jewels, in his rage and despair, he 
goes about the streets of Venice followed by hooting boys. If all 
this were sceiiically represented, instead of being described, as it 
is by Salanio, in a dozen lines, in the 8th Scene of the 2d Act, it 
would weaken Shylock's appearance in the next Scene but one, the 
I St of the 3d Act, where he meets with Salanio and Salarino, and, 
after they go out, is driven almost to desperation by the news which 
Tubal brings him. Furthermore, the poet must have felt that, in 
representing scenically what Salanio describes, he would be heap- 
ing too much indignity on the leading character of the Play, in 
advance of the main business of the action. The poor fellow is 
treated badly enough as it is. But if he had been in the hands of 
almost any other dramatist of the time, that dramatist would prob- 
ably have made the most possible out of the incidents which are 
merely related in Shakespeare's Play, and thus kept in the back- 
ground. We should have had, most likely, a scene in which poor 



INTR OD UC TION. 2 1 

Shylock was pelted by the hooting boys with sticks and stones, 
and insulted with outrageous epithets. 

Shakespeare's use of narration in his Dramas, has been treated 
by Professor Delius, in two Papers read before the New Shak- 
spere Society, and published in its Transactions for 1875-6. He 
traces what he calls the Epic or Narrative elements, in about 25 of 
the Plays, and shows their artistic bearings, and also how, in some 
cases, they were determined by the nature of the stage properties 
in Shakespeare's day, and the necessities of the theatre. A careful 
study should be made of these two papers. They will help to a 
new insight into the poet's workmanship. It is more important, 
far more important, to get at the secrets of the poet's dramatic 
effects, at the skilful management of the dramatic action than 
it is to study the Plays as embodying philosophic ideas. They 
should not be studied as closet plays, but as plays written ex- 
pressly for representation on the stage. When we read them, we 
should read them with the stage before the mind's eye ; otherwise 
we read them from a standpoint other than the artist's own. If 
we regard them as arenas for philosophical disquisition, as some 
commentators have done, we do not treat them fairly, because we 
lose sight of their real character. 

Another means of effective expression, most skilfully employed 
in the Plays, is Contrast, of which Shakespeare was a great master, 
and of which he was evidently fond. 

The extent to which the high and the low, the great and the lit- 
tle, the noble and the base, the sad and the merry, are brought 
together in the Plays, shocked and disgusted some of the earlier 
critics, both English and French (Thomas Rymer and Voltaire, 
for example), who could not sufficiently free their minds from 
classical and from merely conventional standards, to appreciate 
aright the artistic management of the heterogeneous. The bring- 
ing together of such diverse material, is, in itself, easy enough to 
do ; but to subject it all to the dominancy of a great idea and a 
profound feeling, is the work of the master-artist, who lives for all 
and in all — whose heart is the heart of the world — who sustains 



22 INTRODUCTION, 

a sympathetic relationship with all things — the force and richness 
of whose inner life assimilate all the forms of human activity 
around him.* In this respect no modern poet comes nearer to 
Shakespeare than does Robert Browning. And in the Prologue 
to his " Ferishtah's Fancies," written September 12, 1883, in his 
7 2d year, he has expressed, with a wonderful touch, what is as 
applicable to the varied ingredients of a Play of Shakespeare, as 
to the " Fancies " which it is meant to characterize. 

Shakespeare surpasses all other dramatists, both of ancient and 
modern times, in the natural evolution of his dialogue — the nat- 
ural evolution — the way in which one speech depends on, and is 
evolved out of a preceding speech. It is quite unnecessary to give 
special examples of this. They can be found wherever- one hap- 
pens to open the Plays. This natural evolution of the dialogue in- 
dicates how completely the poet identified himself with his scenes. 
And with what skill little intervals are filled up with side-dialogues ! 
For example: in Julius Caesar, A. II. Sc. i. 86-112, the conspir- 
ators, Cassius, Casca, Decius, Cinna, Metellus Cimber, and Tre- 
bonius, call upon Brutus, before the day breaks. After Cassius 
has presented his companions to Brutus, who welcomes them all, 
he entreats a word aside with Brutus. While they whisper apart, 
Decius says to the others : " Here lies the east ; doth not the day 
break here ? Casca. No. Cinna. O, pardon, sir, it doth ; and yon 
gray lines, that fret the clouds, are messengers of day. Casca. You 
shall confess that you are both deceived. Here, as I point my 
sword, the sun arises ; w^hich is a great way growing on the south, 
weighing the youthful season of the year. Some two months hence, 
up higher towards the north he first presents his fire ; and the 
high east stands, as the Capitol, directly here." 



* In connection with this suliject, see Mr. Hales's Paper on the Porter 
Scene in Macbeth, New Shakspere Society Transactions, 1874, p. 262; and 
Contrasting Scenes in the " Shakespeare Key," by Charles and Mary Cowden 
Clarke, pp. 50, 51. The Scenes noted are, Henry VIII., A. V. Sc. iii. ; Romeo 
and Juliet, A. IV. Sc. v. 96 et seq.; Macbeth, A. II. Sc. iii. 1-45; Hamlet, 
A. V. Sc. i.; Othello, A. III. Sc. i.; Antony and Cleopatra, A. V. Sc.ii. 241-281. 



INTR OD UC TION. 2 3 

The private conference over, Brutus turns to the others and 
says : " Give me your hands all over, one by one." etc. 

How simple, and as a matter of course, all this seems ! And yet 
it demanded a perfect identification on the part of the poet with 
his characters — their situations and their circumstances. 

The side-dialogue may be regarded, too, as indicating the con- 
spirators' deep sense of what they have entered upon ; and they 
endeavor to persuade themselves that they are calm and self-pos- 
sessed under it, by their off-hand talk, during the conference of 
Brutus and Cassius, about where lies the east and the direction 
of the Capitol. This talk on ordinary matters, at a time of great 
import, is not unUke the minute observation which attends a great 
intensity of feeling.* 

Thomas De Quincey, in his Life of Shakespeare, contrasts 
Shakespeare's dialogue with that of the French and the Italian 
drama (perhaps a Uttle too strongly, as is his wont) : "Among 
the many defects and infirmities of the French and of the Italian 
drama, indeed, we may say of the Greek, the dialogue proceeds 
always by independent speeches, replying indeed to each other, 
but never modified in its several openings by the momentary 
effect of its several terminal forms immediately preceding. Now, 
in Shakespeare, who first set an example of that most important 
innovation, in all his impassioned dialogues, each reply or rejoin- 
der seems the mere rebound of the previous speech. Every form 
of natural interruption, breaking through the restraints of cere- 
mony under the impulses of tempestuous passion ; every form 
of hasty interrogative, ardent reiteration when a question has been 
evaded ; every form of scornful repetition of the hostile words ; 
every impatient continuation of the hostile statement; in short, 
all modes and formulae by which anger, hurry, fretfulness, scorn, 
impatience, or excitement under any movement whatever, can dis- 
turb or modify or dislocate the formal bookish style of commence- 



*See "Crossing Speeches," in "The Shakespeare Key": by Charles and 
Mary Cowden Clarke, pp. 69-73. 



24 INTR OD UC TION. 

ment, — these are as rife in Shakespeare's dialogue as in Hfe itself; 
and how much vivacity, how profound a verisimihtude, they add 
to the scenic effect as an imitation of human passion and real life, 
we need not say. A volume might be written illustrating the vast 
varieties of Shakespeare's art and power in this one field of im- 
provement ; another volume might be dedicated to the exposure 
of the lifeless and unnatural result from the opposite practice' in 
the foreign stages of France and Italy. And we may truly say, 
that were Shakespeare distinguished from them by this single 
feature of nature and propriety, he would on that account alone 
have merited a great immortality." 

What material for an artistic education is everywhere present in 
Shakespeare ! In the minutest details of his art, and in the man- 
agement of the general dramatic action ! There is no clap-trap, 
no getting up of the unexpected and surprising, to which Dryden 
and his contemporaries attached so much importance, no tricky 
inventions. The whole organism of a play is made to serve the 
soul of the play. And instead, too, of that 7necha7ncal unity of 
action, which the classical plays of modern times more or less 
exhibit, there is that higher vital unity which results from a domi- 
nant, all-pervading, moulding and Mviii'jmg feeling. 



THE SHAKESPEARE-BACON CONTROVERSY. 25 

THE 

SHAKESPEARE-BACON CONTROVERSY. 



Lady Bab. Did you never read Shikspur? 

Mrs. Kitty. Shikspur? Shikspur? Who wrote it? 

— Garrick's High Life below Stairs. 

THE question which was raised, some years ago, and which 
has been discussed ever since, as to the authorship of the 
Shakespeare Plays, is one which no more calls for an answer than 
a question which might be raised by some bumptious quidnunc, 
as to whether the Canterbury Tales were not written by John 
Gower, or the Faerie Queene, by Sir Walter Raleigh, or the Dun- 
ciad, by Dean Swift, or Tam O'Shanter, by some Scottish philoso- 
pher, or other. 

There's not a particle of evidence to begin with, of a kind even 
to raise the faintest suspicion, that William Shakespeare of Strat- 
ford-upon-Avon, Gentleman, was not the author of the Plays and 
Poems attributed to him. The question as to the authorship of 
these wonderful products of dramatic genius, started with the mere 
assumption that a man circumstanced as was William Shakespeare, 
and with no scholastic training, could not have written the Plays ; 
and Lord Bacon was, accordingly, selected from the many great 
men of the time, as having the most august intellect, and, ergo, as 
being the most likely to have produced the Plays. The assump- 
tion, of course, involved the idea that great intellectual ability, of 
a signally analytic and inductive order, would, of itself, be equal 
to the production of works which exhibit the most signally syn- 
thetic and intuitive order of mind which has yet been known 
among men. 



26 THE SHAKESPEARE-BACON CONTROVERSY. 

The learning which the Plays exhibit it has been thought im- 
possible for a man in Shakespeare's position to have possessed. 
When the transcendent power of the Plays is considered, the 
learning, strictly speaking, which is secreted in them, is surpris- 
ingly httle. The Plays bear more emphatic testimony than do 
any other masterpieces of genius, to the fact that great creative 
power may be triumphantly exercised without learning (I mean 
the learning of the Schools) . But the knowledge and the wisdom 
with which they are gloriously illuminated, are the greatest possible 
which man has yet, in his whole history, shown himself capable 
of possessing — just that kind of knowledge and wisdom which 
Shakespeare, assuming the requisite constitutional receptivity, was 
most favorably circumstanced to acquire. 

A notion prevails in these days of a diseased analytic conscious- 
ness that the only way to know in any given direction, is to make 
a large number of observations in that direction, and when one 
has, say, a flour barrel full of jottings, to turn them out on the 
floor, and to get down on hands and knees and sort 'em into some 
result ! 

But there is such a thing as a direct perception of truth; and 
of a kind of truth which can never be attained to by the mere 
grubbing and delving intellect, however great that intellect may 
be. This direct perception of truth is an attribute of man's spirit- 
ual nature. When a man's spiritual nature is adequately quickened, 
and in the requisite harmony with the constitution of things (and 
there can be no artistic or creative power in any one who is not 
to a greater or less degree, so conditioned), he takes cognizance 
of the workings of nature and of the life of man, by direct assimila- 
tion of their hidden pri^iciples — principles which cannot be reached 
through an observation, by the natural intelligence, of the phe- 
nomenal. He may thus become possessed of a knowledge, or 
rather wisdom, far beyond his conscious observation and objective 
experience. By direct assimilation of hidden principles, I mean, 
that assimilation which results from the response of spirit to spirit. 
All spirit is mutually attractive, as all matter is ; and, if it is not 



THE SHAKESPEARE-BACON CONTROVERSY. 2/ 

" cabined, cribbed, confined," but free in its activity, it goes forth 
to respond to all manifestations of spirit made through the phe- 
nomena of nature and of human life. It is this freedom of spirit- 
ual activity which distinguishes what we call genius from what is 
understood as mere talent. Genius finds its way, by its own light, 
where mere intellect would be lost in darkness. 

In all other works of genius with which I am acquainted, I dis- 
cover no such evidences of a direct perception of truth, as I dis- 
cover in the works of Shakespeare. By a direct perception of truth, 
I mean, an immediate grasp of truth, without any conscious induc- 
tion or deduction. Women have this direct perception, in some re- 
spects, more than men. And every great genius has united in himself 
the masculine and the feminine nature. And here is a remark- 
able fact to be noticed, in regard to Shakespeare — all the knowl- 
edge and wisdom which he was circumstanced to acquire directly 
from his own environment, is quite unerring : but his mere book- 
knowledge, wherever it appears, in his works, is more or less incor- 
rect. Indeed, such was the creative force of the man, that all 
knowledge outside of the range of his own experience, he used 
with a grand audacity. Of the time and place of persons, and 
things, and events and customs, he appears to have been quite 
regardless. He knew that such great men as Galen, and Alex- 
ander, and Cato, once lived, that Galen was a celebrated physi- 
cian, Alexander, a famous conqueror, and Cato (the Censor), an 
eminent patriot, and soldier, and statesman ; but he introduces 
them all into one of his greatest plays — perhaps the most perfect 
as a work of dramatic art — Coriolanus ! The period of the 
legendary Coriolanus, was the 5th century before Christ; his 
victory over the Volscians, at CorioH, being placed at 450 B.C. 
Alexander was born nearly 150 years later; Cato, more than 250 
years later ; and Galen, more than 600 years later ! 

The Winter's Tale exhibits false geography and a jolly jumble 
of times and events and persons. The great poet was too much 
occupied with his dramatic creation, to trouble himself with mere 
matters of scholarship. Accordingly, Bohemia is made a maritime 



28 THE SHAKESPEARE-BACON CONTROVERSY, 

country (as it is, also, in the original novel, " Pandosto, or the Tri- 
umph of Time," by Robert Greene) ; Whitsun pastorals and Chris- 
tian burial, and numerous other features of the Elizabethan age, 
are introduced into pagan times ; Queen Hermione speaks of her- 
self as a daughter of the Emperor of Russia ; her statue is repre- 
sented as executed by Julio Romano, an Italian painter of the 
1 6th century; a puritan sings psalms to hornpipes ; and, to crown 
all, messengers are sent to consult the oracle of Apollo, at Delphi, 
which is represented as an island ! 

This lovely romantic drama, which, with all this galUmaufry, 
invites a rectified attitude toward the True and the Sweet, was 
one of the latest, if not the latest, of the poet's compositions. 
But it doesn't appear that his indirect knowledge improved much 
with years. 

Such examples of jumble and anachronism abound throughout 
the Plays. And there is not a single Play, whatever be its time 
and place, which does not reflect, in every act, almost, some fea- 
tures of the age of Elizabeth. 

Learning, indeed ! If Shakespeare hadn't possessed something 
infinitely better than learning (and, I would add, something infi- 
nitely better than a great analytic, inductive, deductive, and clas- 
sifying intellect, such as that possessed by Lord Bacon), we should 
not now be enjoying such a noble dramatic heritage as we are. 
And if John Shakespeare had had the means to send William to 
Oxford or Cambridge, and William had gone through, or been 
driven through, the curriculum of either of these Universities, what 
a misfortune it might have been to mankind ! He might have 
been schooled in, and might afterwards have adhered to, those 
laws of dramatic art which, in the absence of such schooling, he 
rendered obsolete for all time, and, by the wonderful dramatic art 
which he himself developed, wrought a complete revolution in the 
drama. 

It may be said, too, that there is nothing in the Plays to which 
Shakespeare could have been helped, by either of the Universities 
in his time, so far as his creative power was concerned. That 



THE SHAKESPEARE-BACON CONTROVERSY. 29 

might have been seriously impaired. His scholarship, if he had 
been a University man, would have been more correct, but a more 
correct scholarship would not have contributed anything to the 
dramatic excellence of the Plays, or to the triumphant organization 
which they exhibit. 

If Shakespeare did not write the Plays attributed to him, cer- 
tainly Lord Bacon did not write them. That Bacon was one of 
the most august of human intellects is freely conceded. But vast 
as is the range of powers exhibited in his works, there is no evi- 
dence in them that he possessed the kind of powers required for 
the composition of the Shakespeare Plays. The evidence is of 
the strongest kind that he was strangely deficient in such powers. 
His spirituality appears to have been in inverse proportion to his 
intellectual power. And his intellectual power was not of the 
creative order. In fact, intellectual power, however great, cannot 
be, of itself, creative. It must be united with spiritual power. 
Bacon's mind was signally analytic, inductive, deductive, judicial ; 
the mind which produced the Shakespeare Plays was as signally 
intuitive (by reason of its spiritual temperament), and as signally 
synthetic (taking in everything which was presented to it, in its 
completeness, and in all its relations). 

It is universally admitted that the author of the Shakespeare 
Plays, whether that author were William Shakespeare, or Lord 
Bacon, or Sir Walter Raleigh, or Queen Elizabeth, was the greatest 
physiologist of human passion, of whom we have any record in 
human history. This, I say, is universally admitted. And he was 
not only the greatest physiologist of human passion, but the most 
artistic physiologist of human passion ; by which I mean, that 
passion, in its evolution, he always presents in its relation to the 
constitution of things. That constitution is never violated. The 
power of self-assertion declines as the passion develops ; and you 
can put your finger on the place, in any tragedy, where a great 
passion passes into fate, after which its subject is swept helplessly 
along. 

Herein consists the moral proportion of the Plays, namely, that 



30 THE SHAKESPEARE-BACON CONTROVERSY. 

they move in harmony with the constitution of things. And this 
moral proportion could not have been secured by the rules of the 
ancients nor by any other outside rules. It was secured by the 
artist's deep sense of the constitution of things — by his spiritual 
harmony with the constitution of things. 

To return from this digression, what must this greatest physiolo- 
gist of human passion have been? Certainly, one who had, him- 
self, a deeply passionate nature ; one, who could sympathetically 
reproduce within himself all the passions which are depicted in 
the Plays. And if all the Plays had perished, and only the Rape 
of Lucrece, the Venus and Adonis, and the Sonnets, had been 
preserved, these works would, alone, have testified to his pro- 
foundly passionate nature. Or, if all his works had been lost, with 
the exception of Antony and Cleopatra, this Play would have suffi- 
ciently testified to his profoundly passionate nature. 

The works of Francis Bacon bear an emphatic testimony to his 
having been the coldest of mankind. No one, certainly, of the 
great Elizabethan men, who has left a sufficient record of himself, 
by which he may be judged, was so deficient in sympathetic 
warmth as Lord Bacon. And yet this man wrote Romeo and 
JuHet ! (See his Essay "Of Love.") This man was the creator 
of a Cordelia, a Desdemona, a Miranda, a Perdita, a Hermione, 
and, more surprising still, of a Cleopatra ! This man, we are 
asked to believe, wrote dramatic blank verse which has never been 
equalled on this earth as a manifestation of feeling and of perfect 
dramatic identification — verse which no mere metrical skill nor 
metrical sensibiHty, even, could have produced. But see "The 
Translation of certain Psalms into English Verse. By the Right 
Honourable Francis Lord Verulam, Viscount St. Alban," and 
dedicated " To his very good friend, Mr. George Herbert," who 
translated part of the Advancement of Learning, into Latin. 
(The Psalms are I, XH, XC, CIV, CXXV, CXXXVII, CXLIX.) 
The translation was pubhshed in 1625, in Quarto, two years after 
the publication of the First Folio edition of the great Plays. 



THE SHAKESPEARE-BACON CONTROVERSY. 31 

This doggerel, Lord Bacon thought it worth while to publish, in 
his 65 th year, though he ignored the authorship of what are re- 
garded as the greatest productions of human genius ! The credu- 
hty of those who are suffering from the dry rot of doubt is some- 
thing wonderful. 



32 THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE FIRST FOLIO. 



THE 

AUTHENTICITY OF THE FIRST FOLIO. 



NO more authentic volume was published in the first quarter 
of the 17th century than the First Foho edition of the Plays 
of Shakespeare; which bears the following title : 

*'Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. 
Published according to the True Originall Copies. London 
Printed by Isaac laggard, and Ed. Blount. 1623." 

The colophon reads : " Printed at the Charges of W. Jaggard, 
Ed. Blount, I. Smithweeke, and W. Aspley, 1623." 

On the title page, on a rectangular ground, measuring 7.5x6.3 
inches, is a portrait of the Poet, under which, on the left-hand 
side, is the inscription, " Martin Droeshout sculpsit London." 
Droeshout was a Dutch artist, resident, at the time, in London. 
He engraved portraits of George Chapman (for his translation of 
Homer), John Fox, the martyrologist, John Howson, Bishop of 
Oxford, afterward Bishop of Durham, Richard Elton, Lord Mont- 
joy Blount, William Fairfax, who fell at the siege of Frankendale, 
in 162 1, and other distinguished persons of the time. (See 3d 
Var. ed. of Shakespeare, 1821, vol. 2, p. 514.) 

Droeshout may never have seen Shakespeare, and may have 
had to work after some poor sketch or painting, in the possession 
of Shakespeare's family, or, which is more likely (as the costume 
is evidently theatrical, even to the hair, which has the appearance 
of a peruke) , after some daub which had been hanging in the tir- 
ing-room of the theatre, representing Shakespeare in one of his 
impersonations, possibly, as has been suggested. Old Knowell, in 



THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE FIRST FOLIO. 33 

Ben Jonson's " Every Man in his Humour." Be that as it may, 
the portrait must have been a passably good hkeness, or Ben Jon- 
son, his most intimate friend, would hardly have allowed his lines 
" To the Reader " respecting it, to face the title-page, especially, 
too, as there must have been hundreds of people in London, at 
the time, to whom Shakespeare's face had been familiar. But all 
which concerns our present purpose is, that the portrait is not a 
"sell," but, unquestionably, an authentic, a bona-fide portrait, 
done by an engraver of whose work numerous other specimens 
exist, and testified to by a life-long friend, and that friend one of 
the most prominent of the poets and dramatists of the time, and 
exceedingly jealous of his own reputation. 

Ben Jonson's lines ' To the Reader ' are familiar to everybody 
who reads : 

" This Figure, that thou here seest put, 

It was for gentle Shakespeare cut ; 

Wherein the Grauer had a strife 

with Nature, to out-doo the life : 

O, could he but haue drawne his wit 

As well in brasse, as he hath hit 

His face ; the Print would then surpasse 

All, that was euer writ in brasse. 

But, since he cannot, Reader, looke 

Not on his Picture, but his Booke." 

B. I. 

A large allowance must of course be made for conventional 
extravagance of phrase, in such cases. Similar compliments to 
engravers were not uncommon at the time. See notes to the 
Lines, in "Shakespeare's Centurie of Prayse ; ... By C. M. 
Ingleby, LL.D. Second edition, ... by Lucy Toulmin Smith," 
pp. 141, 142. But the important thing is the high tribute in- 
volved in the Lines, to the Poet's " wit." 

Though it is outside of our present purpose, one thing must be 
said in defence of Droeshout, as an engraver, namely, that, judg- 
ing from other portraits which exist, engraved by him, especially 
those of Fairfax and Bishop Howson, this of Shakespeare, as we 



34 THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE FIRST FOLIO. 

have it in the First FoHo, does not do him (the engraver) justice, 
evidence existing that the plate on which the portrait was en- 
graved, was tampered with before it was used for printing the 
portrait as it appears in the First Foho. That evidence is afforded 
by a proof-impression now among the Shakespearian rarities, 
drawings, and engravings, possessed by James Orchard Halliwell- 
PhilHpps,* Esq., F.R.S., at Holhngbury Copse, near Brighton, 
England, " that quaint wigwam on the Sussex Downs which has 
the honour of sheltering more record and artistic evidences con- 
nected with the personal history of the Great Dramatist than are 
to be found in any other of the World's libraries." Mr. Halliwell- 
Phillipps privately printed a Calendar of these rarities, " For Spe- 
cial Circulation and for Presents only." I have had the privilege 
of examining the above-mentioned proof-impression, and can 
testify to the superior delicacy and softness of the work to that 
exhibited by the portrait as it appears in all existing copies of the 
First Folio. The late F. W. Fairholt, F. S. A., in his description, 
given in the Calendar, of this proof-impression, minutely contrasts 
it with the Folio engraving, and explains how by cross-hatching 
and coarse dotting, the artistic merit of the plate was seriously 
impaired ; and the late Mr. William Smith, Director of the Nat- 
ional Portrait Gallery, the highest authority on early engraving, 
after a careful examination of the proof-impression, gives it as his 
opinion, that " on what is technically termed proving the plate, it 
was thought that much of the work was so delicate as not to allow 
of a sufficient number of impressions being printed. Droeshout 
might probably have refused to spoil his work, and it was re- 
touched by an inferior and coarser engraver." 

Sed hcBC hactenus. My theme is the authenticity of the First 
Foho. 

Following the title-leaf, is the Dedication, " To the most noble 
and incomparable paire of brethren. William Earle of Pembroke, 
&c. Lord Chamberlaine to the Kings most Excellent Maiesty. 



♦ Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps died on the 3d of January, 1889. 



THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE FIRST FOLIO. 35 

and Philip Earle of Montgomery, &c. Gentleman of his Maies- 
ties Bed-Chamber. Both Knights of the most Noble Order of the 
Garter, and our singular good Lords." 

It may be assumed, as a matter of course, that the privilege of 
dedicating the Work to two noblemen of such exalted rank and 
station as were the Earl of Pembroke and the Earl of Montgomery, 
had first to be solicited and secured by the dedicators, John 
Heminge and Henry Condell. It would have been a piece of un- 
exampled audacity, in those days, for two actors to dedicate the 
Work to them without express permission. And it is evident 
from the Dedication itself, that the privilege was granted by them, 
not so much on account of the honor (although they no doubt 
esteemed it such), which the Dedication would do them, as by 
reason of their personal interest in Shakespeare, and of their 
admiration of his Plays. 

From what we know of one of the dedicatees, the Earl of Pem- 
broke, as a liberal patron of literature and the drama, and of their . 
representatives, it may be presumed, that he generously aided in 
the enterprise, which must have been attended with large expense. 
The publication of such a magnificent volume, in those days, 
when there was no general reading public, and no book trade, in 
its present meaning, was a great undertaking, and could have 
been possible only with noble patronage. 

The knowledge we have of these two noblemen, is abundant and 
entirely authentic. Anthony a Wood says of them, in his " Athense 
Oxonienses. — An exact history of all the Writers and Bishops 
who have had their Education in the most Antient and Famous 
University of Oxford, from 15 Hen. vii. A.D. 1500, to the 
Author's death in Nov. 1695," "William Herbert, son and heir 
of Hen. Earl of Pembroke, was born at Wilton in Wilts, 8 Apr. 
1580, became a nobleman of New Coll. in Lent Term 1592, aged 
13, continued there about two years, succeeded his father in his 
honours 1601, made Knight of the Garter i Jac. i. and Govern- 
our of Portsmouth six years after. In 1626 he was unanimously 
elected Chancellor of this University [Oxford], being a great 



36 THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE FIRST FOLIO. 

patron of learning, and about that time was made Lord Steward 
of the Kings Household. He was not only a great favourer of 
learned and ingenious men, but was himself learned, and endowed 
to admiration with a poetical geny, as by those amorous and not 
inelegant aires and poems of his composition doth evidently 
appear ; some of which had musical-notes set to them by Hen. 
Lawes * and Nich. Laneare. All that he hath extant, were pub- 
lished with this title : Poems written by William Earl of Pem- 
broke, etc., many of which are answered by way of repartee, by 
Sir Benj. Rudyard, with other poems written by them occasionally 
and apart. Lond. 1660. Oct. He died suddenly in his house 
called Baynard's Castle in London, on the tenth of Apr. in six- 
teen hundred and thirty . . . whereupon his body was buried in 
the Cath. Ch. at Salisbury near to that of his Father. See more 
of him in the "Fasti," among the Creations, an. 1605. He had a 
younger brother named Philip, who was also a nobleman of New 
Coll. at the same time with his brother, was afterwards created 
Earl of Montgomery, and upon the death of his brother WilHam, 
succeeded in the title of Pembroke. . . . He also turned rebel f 
when the Civil Wars began in 1642, was one of the Council of 
State by Oliver's appointment after K. Ch. L was beheaded," . . . 

He too was Chancellor of the University of Oxford, in 1648. 

Pembroke College was named after William, Earl of Pembroke. 
He presented to the Bodleian Library 242 Greek manuscripts 
which he had bought in Italy. 

In the "Fasti Oxonienses " appended to the "Athenae Oxoni- 
enses," the Earl of Pembroke is represented as " the very picture 
and viva effigies of Nobility, a person truly generous, a singular 
lover of learning and the professors thereof, and therefore by the 
Academians elected their Chancellor some years after this. . . . 



* The leading musical composer of the time. He composed the music for 
Milton's Comus, and performed the combined characters of the Spirit and the 
shepherd Thyrsis in that drama; was one of the court-musicians to K. Charles 
the First. f Wood was a hot Royalist. 



THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE FIRST FOLIO. 37 

His person was rather majestic than elegant, and his presence, 
whether quiet or in motion, was full of stately gravity. His mind 
was purely heroic, often stout, but never disloyal, and so vehe- 
ment an opponent of the Spaniard, that when that match fell under 
consideration in the latter end of the reign of K. Jam. I. he would 
sometimes rouse to the trepidation* of that king, yet kept in 
favour still ; for His Majesty knew plain dealing (as a jewel in all 
men so) was in a Privy-Counsellor an ornamental duty ; and the 
same true heartedness commended him to K. Ch. I." 

These two noblemen were nephews of Sir Philip Sidney, their 
mother being Mary Sidney, Sir Phihp's sister, who married Henry, 
2d Earl of Pembroke, in 1576. P'or her Sir Philip wrote his 
" Arcadia." She composed an " Elegy on Sir Philip Sidney," 
and a "Pastoral Dialogue in Praise of Astraea" (Queen Eliza- 
beth). She was a Hebrew scholar, and translated a number of 
the Psalms into English verse, and also certain works from the 
French. She died in 162 1. For a further account of her, see 
Rose's " Biographical Dictionary." She was the subject of Ben 
Jonson's celebrated epitaph : 

" Underneath this sable f hearse 
Lies the subject of all verse, 
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother. 
Death, ere thou hast slain another, 
Learn'd % and fair and good as she, 
Time shall throw a dart at thee." 

Lord Clarendon gives a noble portrait of the Earl of Pembroke, 
in his "History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England : " 

" William, Earl of Pembroke, was next, a man of another mould 
and making [than the Earl of Arundel] , and of another fame and 
reputation with all men, being the most universally beloved and 
esteemed of any man of that age ; and having a great office in the 



* Ham-L'Estrange in his " History of the reign of King Charles I." under 
the year 1630. t V. R., "marble." \ V. R., "wise." 



2,8 THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE FIRST FOLIO. 

court, he made the court itself better esteemed, and more rever- 
enced in the country. And as he had a great number of friends 
of the best men, so no man had ever the confidence to avow him- 
self to be his enemy. . . . He was master of a great fortune from 
his ancestors, and had a great addition from his wife, . . . but all 
served not his expense, which was only hmited by his great mind, 
and occasions to use it nobly. 

" He lived many years about the court, before in it ; and never 
by it ; being rather regarded and esteemed by King James, than 
loved and favoured. After the foul fall of the earl of Somerset, 
he was made lord Chamberlain of the King's house, more for the 
Court's sake than his own ; and the Court appeared with the 
more lustre, because he had the government of that province. 
As he spent and lived upon his own fortune, so he stood upon his 
own feet, without any other support than of his proper virtue and 
merit; and lived towards the favourites with that decency, as 
would not suffer them to censure or reproach his master's judg- 
ment and election, but as with men of his own rank. He was ex- 
ceedingly beloved in the court, because he never desired to get that 
for himself, which others labored for, but was still ready to pro- 
mote the pretences of worthy men. And he was equally cele- 
brated in the country, for having received no obhgations from the 
court which might corrupt or sway his affections and judgment; 
so that all who were displeased and unsatisfied in the court, were 
always inclined to put themselves under his banner, if he would 
have admitted them ; and yet he did not so reject them, as to make 
them choose another shelter, but so far suffered them to depend 
on him, that he could restrain them from breaking out beyond 
private resentments and murmurs. 

" He was a great lover of his country, and of the religion and jus- 
tice, which he believed could only support it ; and his friendships 
were only with men of those principles. And as his conversation 
was most with men of the most pregnant parts and understanding, 
so towards any such, who needed support or encouragements, 
though unknown, if fairly recommended to him, he was very lib- 



THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE FIRST FOIIO. 39 

eral. Sure never man was planted in a court, that was fitter for 
that soil, or brought better qualities with him to purify that air." 

See also Lodge's " Portraits of Illustrious Personages of Great 
Britain," Bohn's ed., vol. 3, pp. 257-266. 

The poet Daniel inscribed to the Earl of Pembroke, in 1601, 
his prose work, "A Defence of Rhyme." We learn from this 
work that Daniel pursued the study of history and poetry under 
the patronage of the Pembroke family, he having been brought up 
at Wilton, the family seat, and to the same family he appears to 
have been indebted for a university education. 

Ben Jonson dedicated his "Catiline his Conspiracy," in the 
First FoHo edition of his Works, 1616, to the Earl of Pembroke, 
in words which reflect the character of both the dedicator and the 
dedicatee. 

" To the Great Example of Honor, and Vertue, the most noble 
William, Earle of Pembroke, Lord Chamberlaine, etc. My Lord, 
In so thick, and darke an ignorance, as now almost covers the age, 
I crave leave to stand neare your light : and, by that, to bee read. 
Posteritie may pay your benefit the honor, & thanks : when it 
shall know, that you dare, in these jig-given times, to countenance 
a legitimate Poeme. I must call it so, against all noise of opinion : 
from whose crude, and ayrie reports, I appeale, to that great and 
singular faculty of iudgement in your Lordship, able to vindicate 
truth from error. It is the first (of this race) that ever I dedi- 
cated to any person, and had I not thought it the best, it should 
have beene taught a lesse ambition. Now, it approcheth your 
censure [i.e., judgment] cheerfully, and with the same assurance, 
that innocency would appeare before a magistrate. 

Your Lo. most faithfull 
honorer, 

Ben Ionson." 

Jonson also dedicated his '' Epigrammes," in the First Folio 
edition of his Works, to the Earl of Pembroke. 

In Chapman's translation of Homer, there is a sonnet addressed 
to the Earl of Pembroke, in the following words : " To the learned, 



40 THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE FIRST FOLIO. 

and most noble patron of learning, the Earl of Pembroke, etc. 
[Against the two Enemies of Humanity and Religion (Ignorance 
and Impiety) the awak't spirit of the most knowing and divine 
Homer calls, to attendance of our Heroical Prince, the most 
honoured and incorruptible heroe, the Earl af Pembroke, &c.] " * 

The sonnet ends with the line, " Pure are those streams that 
these times cannot trouble," which reflects the reputation the Earl 
universally enjoyed. 

As shown by Charles Armitage Brown, in his " Shakespeare's 
Autobiographical Poems, being his Sonnets clearly developed," 
etc., there is "every probability short of certainty," that by the 
"Mr. W. H." to whom the first edition of the Sonnets (1609) is 
dedicated, as their "onhe begetter," (that is, the Sonnets were 
born of him,!) was meant William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. 
The judicial Henry Hallam remarks thereupon, in his " Introduc- 
tion to the Literature of Europe," " This hypothesis is not strictly 
proved, but sufficiently so, in my opinion, to demand our assent." 

Shakespeare's " sugred Sonnets among his private friends," are 
alluded to by Francis Meres, in his " Palladis Tamia," pubUshed 
in 1598. If these "sugred sonnets" were the same, or generally 
the same, as those pubhshed in 1609, it is, therefore, not unlikely, 
that the friendship of Poet and Patron must have extended over a 
period of twenty years. 

The Dedication of the First Foho, it is plain to see, is not the 
ordinary, conventional, adulatory, meaningless dedication of the 
time, which was as often solicited by the dedicatee, who was short 
of honors, as by the dedicator, who was short of funds ; but that so 
distinguished had been the favor shown to Shakespeare by the 
Earl of Pembroke and the Earl of Montgomery, and such had 
been their estimation of his Plays, and such was their pre-emi- 
nence (especially that of the Earl of Pembroke) as liberal patrons 
of literature and the drama, that, in the words of the Dedication, 



* The brackets are in the original title, 

t " Yet be most proud of that which I compile, whose influence is thine and 
born of thee." Sonnet 78. 



THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE FIRST FOLIO. 4 1 

"the Volume asked to be theirs." What significant words (or 
are they merely words without any significance ?) are the follow- 
ing, from the Dedication : " But since your L. L. have beene 
pleas' d to think these trifles some-thing, heeretofore ; and have 
prosequuted both them, and their Authour living, with so much 
favour : we hope, that {they out-living him, and he not having the 
fate, common with some, to be exequutor to his owne writings^ you 
will use the like indulgence toward them, you have done tmto 
their parent. There is a great difference, whether any Booke 
choose his Patrones, or finde them : This hath done both. For, so 
much were your L. L. likings of the severall parts, when they were 
acted, as before they were published, the Volume ask'd to be yours. 
We have but collected thefn, aftd done an office to the dead, to pro- 
cure his Orphanes, Guardians; without ambition either of selfe- 
profit, or fame : only to keep the memory of so worthy a Friefid, &* 
Fellow alive, as was our Shakespeare, by humble offer of his playes, 
to your most noble patronage.'' 

The Pembrokes were of the best stock in England ; and no 
other noble family of the time sustained more intimate relations 
with, and favored more liberally, literature and the drama, and 
their representatives, nor was better acquainted with all the literary 
and dramatic circumstances of the time. The Earl of Pembroke 
certainly knew more about the man Shakespeare and the author- 
ship of the Shakespeare Plays than William Henry Smith, Delia 
Bacon, Nathaniel Holmes, Ignatius Donnelly, and other " unfortu- 
nate souls that trace them in their line," all of whom belong to a 
class of minds characterized by Dr. Ingleby : " Mix up," he says, 
" a quantity of matters relevant and irrelevant, and those minds 
will eliminate from the instrument of reasoning every point on 
which the reasoning ought to turn, and then proceed to exercise 
their constitutional perversity on the residue." 

If the Earl of Pembroke had had any doubt as to Shakespeare's 
being the veritable author of the Plays, he was not the man to 
accept the dedication of them as Shakespeare's, nor to allow the 
Statement in the Dedication that he and his brother Philip, had 



42 THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE FIRST FOLIO. 

^^ prosequuted both them and their Authour livitig, ivith so much 
favour y Again. No other author of the time knew the man 
Shakespeare better, sustained more intimate relations with him, 
nor was better acquainted with all the literary and dramatic cir- 
cu7nsta7ices of the time, than Ben Jonson. And if he had had 
any doubt, induced by the faintest whisper of suspicion in the 
dramatic world, as to whether Shakespeare were the veritable 
author of the Plays, he was the unlikeliest man in all England to 
lend his name, and authority, to a work of questionable authorship. 
We know the personal character of Ben Jonson better, perhaps, 
than we know that of any other man of the time. His character 
is to us as distinct as that of his great namesake of the i8th cen- 
tury. Both were characterized by a rough (I was going to say, 
brutal) honesty; both showed no quarter to shams; both had 
marvellous good opinions of themselves; and both were chary 
of their praises of others. 

Following the Dedication is the Address of the editors, John 
Heminge and Henrie Condell, To the great Variety of Readers. 
The 2d paragraph of this address is notable : " It had bene a 
thing, we confesse, worthie to have bene wished, that the Author 
himselfe had liv'd to have set forth, and overseen his owne writ- 
ings ; * But since it hath bin ordain'd otherwise, and he by death 
departed from that right, we pray you do not envie his Friends, 
the office of their care, and paine, to have collected & publish'd 
them ; and so to have publish'd them, as where (before) you were 
abus'd t with diverse stolne, and surreptitious copies, J maimed, and 



* There seems to be implied here the supposition on the part of the Editors, 
that Shakespeare, if his life had been prolonged, would have " set forth and 
overseen his ovi'n writings." And there is good evidence that his death was 
sudden and unexpected. t deceived. 

X The (in most cases, no doubt) unauthorized and pirated quarto editions 
of Shakespeare's Plays, published during his lifetime, are referred to here. 
Sixteen Plays were so published, some of them in two or more editions, namely, 
Romeo and Juliet, Richard II., Richard III., i Henry IV., Love's Labour's Lost, 
Much Ado about Nothing, Midsummer Night's Dream, Merchant of Venice, 



THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE FIRST FOIIO. 43 

deformed by the frauds and stealthes of injurious impostors, that 
expos'd them : * even those, are now offer'd to your view cur'd, and 
perfect of their Umbes ; and all the rest, absolute in their numbers, 
as he conceived the. Who, as he was a happie imitator of Nature, 
was a most gentle expresser of it. His mind and hand went 
together : And what he thought, he uttered with that easinesse, 
that wee have scarse received from him a blot t in his papers." 
The knowledge we have of Heminge and Condell, is, as far as it 



2 Henry IV., Henry V., Titus Andronicus, Merry Wives of Windsor, Hamlet, 
King Lear, Troilus and Cressida, and Pericles. Othello was published in 1622. 
Eighteen Plays appeared for the first time in the Folio of 1623, for which we 
are indebted to Heminge and Condell, some of them being the greatest of 
Shakespeare's Plays, for example, Julius Cxsar, Macbeth, Antony and Cleo- 
patra, Coriolanus, The Tempest, The Winter's Tale. But for their pious care, 
these greatest of human productions may have been lost to the world. 

* i.e., for sale. 

t Erasure. Ben Jonson, in his "Timber; or, Discoveries, etc.," says: "I 
remember, the Players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare^ 
that in his writing (whatsoever he penn'd) hee never blotted out line. My 
answer hath beene, would he had blotted a thousand. Which they thought 
a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this, but for their ignorance, 
who choose that circumstance to commend their friend by, wherein he most 
faulted. And to justifie mine owne candor, (for I lov'd the man, and doe 
honour his memory (on this side Idolatry) as much as any). He was (indeed) 
honest, and of an open, and free nature: had an excellent Phantsie ; brave 
notions, and gentle expressions : wherein hee flow'd with that facility, that 
sometime it was necessary he should be stop'd : Sufflaminandus erat ; as 
Augustus said of Hateritis. His wit was in his own power; would the rule 
of it had beene so too. Many times hee fell into those things, could not 
escape laughter : As when hee said in the person of Caesar, one speaking to 
him; Ccesar thou dost me ivrong. Hee replyed : Cccsar did never zurong, but 
with just cause : and such like; which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his 
vices, with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praysed, then to be 
pardoned." Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps remarks (" Life of Shakespeare," 1848, p. 
185), "If wrong is taken in the sense of injury or harm, as Shakespeare 
sometimes uses it, there is no absurdity in this Hne." It is not unlikely that 
Ben Jonson had a hand both in the Dedication and in the Address " To the 
great Variety of Readers." There can be but little doubt of this in regard to 
the latter. See the "Variorum" of 1821, Vol. II. pp. 663-675. 



44 THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE FIRST FOLIO. 

goes, of the most authentic character, being derived from contem- 
porary works and legal documents. They were both men of high 
standing in their profession, ranking, as it appears, next to Rich- 
ard Burbadge, as actors. They both, especially Condell, appear to 
have been held in the highest esteem by their theatrical associates. 
Their Wills show them to have possessed considerable property, 
to have had strict business habits, and great uprightness of charac- 
ter, and to have been affectionate husbands and fathers. Shake- 
speare honored them along with Richard Burbadge, with an expres- 
sion of his regard, in the following Item of his will : 

" I gyve and bequeath . . . to my fellowes John Hemynges, 
Richard Burbage, and Henry Cundell xxvi^ viij'^ a peece to buy 
thejn r ingest 

We learn from the First Folio edition of Ben Jonson's Works, 
published in 1616, that they both had parts in the following Plays, 
when they were first acted : " Every Man in his Humour," in 
1598; "Every Man out of his Humour," in 1599; "Sejanus 
his Fall," in 1603; "Volpone, or the Foxe," in 1605; "The 
Alchemist," in 1610; "Catiline his Conspiracy," in 1611. 

" In some tract, of which I have forgot to preserve the title," 
says Malone, in his " Historical Account of the English Stage," 
" he [John Heminge] is said to have been the original performer 
of Falstaff." 

Condell had parts in a number of the Plays of Beaumont and 
Fletcher; in "The Captain," "Bonduca," "The Knight of Malta," 
" Valentinian," "The Queen of Corinth," "The Loyal Subject," 
and " The Mad Lover " ; and he played the Cardinal in Webster's 
" Duchess of Malfi." 

Heminge died (it is supposed of the plague) in October, 1630; 
and Condell, in December, 1627.* 



* See " Memoirs of the Principal Actors in the Plays of Shakespeare." 
By J. Payne Collier, Esq., F.S.A.; "On the Actor Lists," 1578-1642. By F. 
G. Fleay, M.A. (contained in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 
Vol. IX.) ; John Marston's Works, ed. Bullen, Vol. I. ; " Dictionary of National 
Biography," edited by Leslie Stephen. Vol. XI. Art, Condell, 



THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE FIRST FOLIO. 45 

After the Address, in the First Folio, To the great Variety of 
Readers, come Ben Jonson's lines, already given, pp. 5-8. Then 
follow commendatory verses by Hugh Holland,* L[eonard] 
Digges,t and I. M.| Those by Hugh Holland, speak of "the 
dainty Playes, which made the Globe of heav'n and earth to ring." 

Those by Leonard Digges are worthy to be quoted entire : 

Shake-speare, at length thy pious fellowes giue 

The world thy Workes : thy Workes by which, out-liue 



* . . . "born at Denbigh, bred in Westminster School, while Camden 
taught there, elected into Trinity College in Cambridge, an. 1589, of which he 
was afterwards Fellow. Thence he went to travel into Italy, . . . Thence he 
went to Jerusalem to do his devotions to the holy Sepulcher, and in his return 
touch'd at Constantinople, ... At his return into England, he retired to Oxon ; 
spent some years there as a Sojourner for the sake of the pubHc Library, . . . 
He is observed by a Cambridge man [Thos. Fuller, in his Worthies of Eng- 
land, in Wales, p. 16] to have been no bad English, but an excellent Latin 
Poet, . . . He died. . . in sixteen hundred thirty and three; . . ." 

— Anthony Wood's "Athenae Oxonienses," 1721, Vol. I. p. 583. 

t " Leonard Digges . . . was born in London, became a Commoner of 
Univ. Coll. in the beginning of the year 1603, aged 15, took the degree of 
Bac. of Arts, retired to the great City for the present, afterwards travelled 
into several Countries, and became an accomplished Person. Some years 
after his return he retired to his Coll. again, and upon his supplication made 
to the venerable Convocation, he was, in consideration that he had spent 
many years in good letters in transmarine Universities, actually created M. of 
A. in 1626. He was esteemed by those who knew him in Univ. Coll. a great 
Master of the English language, a perfect understander of the French and 
Spanish, a good Poet and no mean Orator. ... He died on the 7th of Apr. 
in sixteen hundred thirty and five, . . . Several verses of his composition 
I have seen printed in the beginning of various Authors, particularly those 
before Shakespear's Works, which shew him to have been an eminent Poet 
of his time." — Anthony Wood's "Athenre Oxonienses," 1721, Vol. L p. 599. 

"His translation of Claudian's Rape of Proserpine was entered on the 
Stationers' books, Oct. 4, 1617." — Steevens. It was printed in the same year. 

\ It is not known for whose name these initials stand. Claims have been 
made for John Marston, Jasper Mayne, and James Mabbe. See " Shakespeare's 
Centurie of Prayse," 2d ed. p. 155, and Notes and Queries, 2d S. XI. 4. 



46 THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE FIRST FOLIO, 

Thy Tombe, thy name must : When that stone is rent, 

And Time dissolues thy Stratford Moniment,* 

Here we aliue shall view thee still. This Booke, 

When Brasse and Marble fade, shall make thee looke 

Fresh to all Ages : when Posteritie 

Shall loath what's new, thinke all is prodegie 

That is not Shake-speares ; euVy Line, each Verse 

Here shall reuiue, redeeme thee from thy Herse. 

Nor Fire, nor cankring Age, as Naso said. 

Of his, thy wit-fraught Booke shall once inuade. 

Nor shall I e'er beleeue, or thinke thee dead 

(Though mist) vntill our bankrout Stage be sped 

(Impossible) with some new straine t' out-do 

Passions of luliet, and her Romeo ; 

Or till I heare a Scene more nobly take, 

Then when thy half-Sword parlying Romans spake. 

Till these, till any of thy Volumes rest 

Shall with more fire, more feeling be exprest. 

Be sure, our Shake-speare, thou canst neuer dye, 

But crown'd with Lawrell, Hue eternally." 

See Leonard Digges's Verses, prefixed to the 1640 edition of 
Shakespeare's Poems, quoted in the criticism on Much Ado 
about Nothing, p. 1 78. 

The verses by I. M., To the metnorie of Mr. W. Shake-speare , 
appear to indicate, the first two of them, that Shakespeare's death 
was unexpected, and occasioned surprise. The histrionic metaphor 
involved throughout the verses, is interesting : 

" Wee wondred (Shake-speare) that thou went'st so soone 
From the Worlds-Stage, to the Graues-Tyring roome. 
Wee thought thee dead, but this thy printed worth, 
Tels thy Spectators, that thou went'st but forth 



* Here it appears that the monument in the Stratford Church had been 
erected in the interval between the death of Shakespeare and the publication 
of the First Folio — by order, without question, of Dr. John Hall and his wife 
Susanna, Shakespeare's eldest daughter, who were appointed executors of his 
last will and testament. 



THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE FIRST FOLIO. 47 

To enter with applause. An Actors Art, 
Can dye, and liue, to acte a second part. 
That's but an Exit of Mortalitie ; 
This, a Re-entrance to a Plaudite." * 



* Latin imperative pi, "applaud, or clap, ye,'' pronounced to the audience 
by the actors or the Epilogue, at the conclusion of a play. Generally the 
words, Vos valete, et plaudite, " Farewell, and applaud," were used. See Plays 
of Terence, at the end. 



48 CHRONOLOGY OF THE PLAYS, 



CHRONOLOGY OF THE PLAYS. 



IT has been a special object of Shakespearian study, of late years, 
to determine, so far as it can be determined, the chronologi- 
cal order of the Plays, with the ulterior object of tracing the devel- 
opment of the poet's dramatic art, and his own individual growth ; 
in other words, of studying his works in their totality, and with 
reference to the personality of which they are a manifestation. 
That chronological order has been settled as conclusively as it 
can, perhaps, ever be, and the results toward the realization of the 
ulterior object I have named, are already of the highest impor- 
tance. Of these results, Professor Dowden's " Shakspere : a 
critical study of his Mind and Art," is, perhaps, the best expres- 
sion. 

There is, perhaps, no great author, whose growth can be more 
distinctly traced through his works, than can Shakespeare's, from 
the period of his apprenticeship, when he retouched and recon- 
structed old plays, and tried his hand cautiously at original work 
— that period being represented by such plays as the ist, 2d, and 
3d parts of Henry VL, Love's Labour's Lost, The Comedy of Errors, 
and The Two Gentlemen of Verona — up to the period of his full 
development and ripeness, represented by his great tragedies, 
Othello, Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra and, finally, 
the Plays now usually called Romances (characterized as they all 
are by romantic elements), Cymbehne, The Tempest, and The 
Winter's Tale. Between the earUest and the latest work, is a 
period of twenty- two or twenty-three years, say from 1590 or '91 
to 16 1 2 or '13; and the steady and healthy growth traceable 



CHRONOLOGY OF THE PLAYS. 



49 



throughout this period bears testimony that the vigorous vitahty 
of the author was maintained to the end. 

The evidence which has been brought to bear upon the dates 
of composition of the several plays, is chiefly of three kinds : 
I. That which is wholly external. 2. That which is partly external 
and partly internal. 3. That which is wholly internal. 

Edmund Malone, the latest of the Shakespeare editors of the 
1 8th century, first undertook systematically to settle the chron- 
ology of the Plays ; and the result of his investigations was first 
published in 1778, in an Essay entitled "An Attempt to ascertain 
the order in which the Plays of Shakespeare were written." He 
confined himself chiefly to the ist and 2d kinds of evidence, 
namely, that which is wholly external, and that which is partly 
external and partly internal (meaning by the latter, " supposed al- 
lusions in the Plays, to contemporary circumstances and events "). 
Of the first kind are " the dates of the quarto editions of some of 
the Plays, entries in the Register of the Stationers' Company, and 
references to the Plays in contemporary books or manuscripts." 

These several kinds of evidence served to reach an approximate 
chronological order upon which could be based the third kind of 
evidence, namely, that which is wholly ijiternal (furnished by the 
verse), and which has served to rectify considerably the conclu- 
sions arrived at, from the other kinds of evidence. 

It should be stated that Malone recognized the verse test, 
especially rhyme. He frequently alludes to it. In treating of the 
date of composition of Love's Labour's Lost, he notes " the fre- 
quent rhymes with which it abounds, of which, in his [Shake- 
speare's] early performances, he seems to have been extremely 
fond." To this remark he appends a long note, in which he an- 
ticipates much that has been set forth, of late years, in regard to 
the rhyme test. Under Romeo and Juliet, he speaks of rhyming 
as " a practice from which he [Shakespeare] gradually departed, 
though he never wholly deserted it." Under Cymbeline, he says, 
" The versification of this play bears, I think, a much greater re- 



50 CHRONOLOGY OF THE PLAYS. 

semblance to that of The Winter's Tale and The Tempest, than to 
any of our author's earlier plays." 

The first valuable contribution to the study of the verse was a 
litde volume, pubhshed anonymously in 1857 (the author was a 
Mr. Bathurst) and entitled " Remarks on the Differences in Shake- 
speare's Versification in different periods of his life, and on the 
like points of difference in Poetry generally." Though in some 
respects a pioneer work, it maps out, with great sagacity, the 
whole subject, which has since been so minutely worked up by 
several members of the New Shakspere Society of London. 



SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 5 I 



SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 



WHEN Shakespeare began to write, blank verse had not yet 
reached, was very far from having reached, that devel- 
opment which adapted it to the highest dramatic purposes. 
It owed its earhest form to the rhyming pentameter couplet. 
Rhyme imparts an emphasis to the end of a verse and pre- 
sents a check more or less strong, to the flowing of one verse 
into another. The consequence is, that, in rhymed verse, 
the thought is more or less obliged to move within prescribed 
limits. It is sectioned off by the metre, and pause-emphasis 
and pause-melody are thereby more precluded than in free blank 
verse. But in the earliest blank verse in the literature, Lord 
Surrey's translation of the 2d and 4th Books of Virgil's ^neid 
(about 1540), fashioned as it was, upon rhyming verse, the melody 
resulting from variety of pause is a minimum. George P. Marsh 
says of Surrey's blank verse, that it "is very often quite undistin- 
guishable from common prose." But the fact is, that the reader is 
kept all the time too conscious of the metrical bondage to which 
the thought is subjected. We do not find, in the words of Milton, 
" the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another." It 
is presumed that in the material for which blank verse is a proper 
vehicle, there is preserved a certain equilibrium of thought and 
feeling, the former being more generally in the ascendant, and 
such material would therefore be bondaged by the cyclic move- 
ment which, to material containing a predominance of feeling over 
thought, would not be bondage at all but would be the movement 
which it would naturally seek for itself. Thought tends toward a 
straightforward movement — toward what the Anglo-Saxons called 



§2 SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 

fordriht sprcec \ that is, forthright speech, straightforward speech ; 
(that, in fact, is what our Latin word prose means : prorsa oratio, 
contracted form of proversa, turned forward, or straightforward 
speech) : * feehng must revolve, must return upon itself; when 
strong, it is importunate to do so. 

The following bit from the description of the serpents that 
attacked Laocoon after he had hurled his spear against the side 
of the wooden horse, will serve to illustrate the general character 
of Surrey's blank verse. 

" Whiles Laocon, that chosen was by lot 
Neptunus priest, did sacrifice a bull 
Before the holy altar, sodenly 
From Tenedon, behold ! in circles great 
By the calm seas come fletyng f adders twaine, 
Which plied tfowardes the shore (I lothe to tell) 
With rered brests lift up above the seas : 
AVhose bloody crestes aloft the waves were seen : 
The hinder parte swamme hidden in the flood : 
Their grisly backes were linked manifold : 
With sound of broken waves they gate the strand, % 
With gloing eyen, tainted with blood and fire : 
Whose waltring§ tongs did lick their hissing mouthes. 
We fled away, our face the blood forsoke. 
But they with gate direct || to Lacon ran. 
And first of all eche serpent doth enwrap 
The bodies small of his two tender sonnes : 
Whose wretched limmes they byt, and fed thereon. 
Then raught they hym, who had his wepon caught 
To rescue them, twise winding him about. 
With folded knottes, and circled tailes, his waist. 
Their scaled backes did compasse twise his neck, 
Wyth rered heddes aloft, and stretched throtes. 
He with his handes strave to onloose the knottes : 
Whose sacred fillettes all be-sprinkled were 



* "That prose is derived from Lat. uersus, whence E, verse, is remark- 
able." — Skeat. t floating. 

X reached the shore. § rolling. || direct path, agmine certo. 



SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 53 

With filth of gory blood and venim rank. 

And to the sterres such dredfull shoutes he sent, 

Like to the sound the roring bull fourth loowes, 

Which from the halter wounded doth astart, 

The swarving axe when he shakes from his neck." 

It will be perceived how servilely the thought moves within the 
limits of the metre. And an impression is got, too, of merely a 
succ€ssio7i of verses : a list of verses : they do not run into each 
other and form a system ; there's a pause at the end of each, and 
they resemble couplets deprived of their rhymes. There's none 
of the sweep — of the elasticity, to which blank verse fifty or sixty 
years later attained. 

The Tragedy of Gorboduc, otherwise known as Ferrex and 
Porrex, the first three acts of which were written by Thomas 
Sackville, first Lord Buckhurst, appeared a little more than a 
score of years after Surrey's Translation of Virgil. It is the ear- 
liest English drama of any kind written in blank verse. The verse 
shows a considerable improvement upon Surrey's, in smoothness 
and in variety of pause ; but, as a general thing, the thought is 
metre-bound. The speeches are long and read too much as if 
they had been prepared beforehand by the several speakers, and 
the dialogue is, as a consequence, not very dramatic. The follow- 
ing speech of King Gorboduc to his counsellors, in the opening of 
Act I. Scene 2, affords a fair specimen of the general tenor of the 
verse. He is urging the importance of a proper training of the 
princes for future rule : 

" My lords, whose grave advice and faithful aid 
Have long upheld my honour and my realm, 
And brought me to this age from tender years, 
Guiding so great estate with great renown : 
Now more importeth me than erst, to use 
Your faith and wisdom whereby yet I reign ; 
That when by death my life and rule shall cease, 
The kingdom yet may with unbroken course 
Have certain prince, by whose undoubted right 



54 SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 

Your wealth and peace may stand in quiet stay : 
And eke that they whom nature hath prepared, 
In time to take my place in princely seat, 
While in their father's time their pliant youth 
Yields to the frame of skilful governance, 
May be so taught, and trained in noble arts, 
As, what their fathers which have reigned before 
Have with great fame derived down to them, 
With honour they may leave unto their seed : 
And not be thought for their unworthy life, 
And for their lawless swerving out of kind. 
Worthy to lose what law and kind them gave ; 
But that they may preserve the common peace, 
(The cause that first began and still maintains 
The Hneal course of king's inheritance) 
For me, for mine, for you, and for the State 
Whereof both I and you have charge and care. 
Thus do I mean to use your wonted faith 
To me and mine and to your native land. 
My lords, be plain without all wry respect. 
Or poisonous craft to speak in pleasing wise, 
Lest as the blame of ill-succeeding things 
Shall light on you, so light the harms also." 

The movement of the verses is considerably freer than Surrey's 
and they are more sequacious — have more continuity, more go. 

In all the early blank verse, a substitute, it would seem, was felt 
to be necessary, by its several writers, whose ears were accustomed 
to the enforcement imparted to the close of verses by rhyme. As 
the ear became accustomed to the absence of rhyme, and the p7'og- 
ress of the verse became freer and more melodious, the strong 
word or syllable at the end of the line, was less solicited. 

When, in tracing the development of blank verse, we come to 
Marlowe, we find a great advance upon all that had been previously 
produced. Though the thought is restricted more or less to met- 
rical limits, there is a far greater freedom and grace of movement 
within those limits. The individual verse is more melodiously 
fused ; and the ear is, in consequence, more engaged with the prog- 



SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 55 

ress of the verse than with its close ; and this being the case, the 
sequence of the verses is felt to be more fluent than in the case 
of verses less melodious in movement and with a more strongly 
marked close. 

Marlowe's earliest play, "Tamburlane the Great," is characterized 
by bombast, rant, and brag ; but these are to some extent atoned 
for by the, at times, splendid vigor of the verse. In his best play, 
" Edward II.," there is more self-restraint, and we meet with verse 
quite equal to the verse of Shakespeare's second period of author- 
ship. 

Take, for example, the speech of young Mortimer, in regard to 
the king's favorite, Gaveston : 

" Uncle, his wanton humour gi"ieves not me ; 
But this I scorn, that one so basely born. 
Should by his sovereign's favour grow so pert, 
And riot it with the treasure of the realm. 
While soldiers mutiny for want of pay, 
He wears a lord's revenue on his back, 
And, Midas-like, he jets it in the court, 
With base outlandish cullions at his heels, 
Whose proud fantastic liveries make such show, 
As if that Proteus, god of shapes, appeared. 
I have not seen a dapper-Jack so brisk ; 
He wears a short Italian hooded-cloak. 
Larded with pearl, and, in his Tuscan cap, 
A jewel of more value than the crown. 
While others walk below, the King and he 
From out a window laugh at such as we. 
And flout our train, and jest at our attire. 
Uncle, 'tis this makes me impatient." — A. I. Sc. iv. 

Young Mortimer receives letters from Scotland informing him 
that his uncle is taken prisoner by the Scots ; with which, when he 
acquaints the king, he gets simply " Then ransom him " for a 

reply. 

" Y. Morti7)icr. My Lord, the family of the Mortimers 
Are not so poor, but, would they sell their land. 



56 SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 

'Twould levy men enough to anger you. 

We never beg, but use such prayers as these. 

******** 

The idle triumphs, masks, lascivious shows 

And prodigal gifts bestowed on Gaveston, 

Have drawn thy treasury dry, and made thee weak ; 

The murmuring commons, overstretched, break. 

******** 

The haughty Dane commands the narrow seas. 

While in the harbour ride thy ships unrigged. 

Thy court is naked, being bereft of those 

That make a king seem glorious to the world ; 

I mean the peers whom thou shouldst dearly love. 

******** 

When wert thou in the field with banners spread ? 

But once : and then thy soldiers march'd like players, 

With garish robes, not armour ; and thyself, 

Bedaub'd with gold, rode laughing at the rest, 

Nodding and shaking of thy spangled crest. 

Where women's favours hung like labels down." 

In the 3d Scene of the 2d Act, Gaveston is represented as 
frolicking with the king at Tynemouth. The nobles resolve on a 
surprise : 

"K Mortmier. Til give the onset. 
Warwick. And Pll follow thee. 
Y. Mortimer. This tattered ensign of my ancestors, 
Which swept the desert shore of that dead sea. 
Whereof we got the name of Mortimer, 
Will I advance upon this castle's walls. 
Drums strike alarum, raise them from their sport, 
And ring aloud the knell of Gaveston." 

There is often a dashing vigor in some of young Mortimer's 
speeches almost equal to that of some of the speeches of Hotspur 
in I Henry IV., but it does not bear with it an equal weight 
of thought. 



SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 



57 



Much of the verse of Marlowe's " Dido, Queen of Carthage,' 
is very beautiful of its kind : 

" Then he unlocked the horse, and suddenly 
From out his entrails, Neoptolemus, 
Setting his spear upon the ground, leapt forth, 
And after him a thousand Grecians more, 
In ijuhose stern faces sJiined the quenchless fire. 
That after burnt the pride of Asia.'''' 

^neas is urging the necessity of his leaving Carthage : 

" Let my Ph^nissa grant and then I go. 
Grant she or no, ^neas imist away ; 
Whose golden fortune, clogged with courtly ease, 
Cannot ascend to Fame's immortal house. 
Or banquet in bright Honour's burnished hall, 
Till he has furrowed Neptune's glassy fields, 
And cut a passage through his topless hills." 

But the garment is at best slightly too big for the thought. 

'^ Dido, ^neas, I'll repair thy Trojan ships, 
Conditionally that thou wilt stay with me. 
And let Achates sail to Italy : 
I'll give thee tackling made of rivelled gold, 
Wound on the barks of odoriferous trees, 
Oars * of massy ivory, full of holes, 
Through which the water shall delight to play ; 
Thy anchors shall be hewed from crystal rocks, 
Which, if thou loose, shall shine above the waves ; 
The masts whereon thy swelling sails shall hang, 
Hollow pyramides of silver plate : 
The sails of folded lawn, where shall be wrought 
The wars of Troy, but not Troy's overthrow. 
For ballace, empty Dido's treasury ; 
Take what ye will, but leave ^neas here. 
Achates, thou shalt be so newly clad, 



Dissyllabic. 



58 SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 

As sea-born nymphs shall swarm about thy ships, 
And wanton mermaids court thee with sweet songs, 
Flinging in favours of more sovereign worth 
Than Thetis hangs about Apollo's neck, 
So that i^neas may but stay with me." 

The play contains single lines of great grace ; such as 
'' The air is clear, and southern winds are whist." 

But Marlow^e's thought, even when freest, rarely transgresses 
the bounds of metre, and the dramatic capabihties of blank verse 
are consequently but imperfectly realized in his Plays. But within 
those bounds, his thought has a remarkable ease and grace of 
movement. 

Great as is the praise due to Marlowe's blank verse, it is cer- 
tainly not entitled to that bestowed upon it by an able writer in 
The Cornhill Magazine, vol. xv. p. 622. The merits he attributes 
to it are rather those of Shakespeare's blank verse, in its highest 
recitative form, as exhibited in i Henry IV. The passages he 
selects from Doctor Faustus, Edward the Second, Tamburlane, 
and the Jew of Malta, do not support his eulogies. After giving a 
specimen of the blank verse of the tragedy of Gorboduc, by Sack- 
ville and Norton, he says : " Mr. Collier, in his ' History of Dra- 
matic Poetry,' mentions two other plays written in blank verse, but 
not performed on the public stage, before the appearance of Mar- 
lowe's ' Tamburlane.' It is to this tragedy that he assigns the 
credit of having once and for all established blank verse as the 
popular dramatic metre of the English. With this opinion all 
students who have examined the origin of our theatrical literature 
will, no doubt, agree. But Marlowe did not merely drive the 
rhymed couplet from the stage by substituting the blank verse of 
his contemporaries : he created a new metre by the melody, 
variety, and force which he infused into the iambic, and left 
models of versification, the pomp and gorgeousness of which 
Shakespeare and Milton alone can be said to have surpassed. The 



SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 59 

change which he operated was so thorough and so novel to the 
playwrights as well as the playgoers of his time, that he met with 
some determined opposition. Thomas Nash spoke scornfully of 
' idiot art masters, that intrude themselves to our ears as the alche- 
mists of eloquence, who (mounted on the stage of arrogance) think 
to attract better pens with the swelling bombast of bragging blank 
verse.' In another sneer he described the new measure as ' the 
spacious volubihty of a drumming decasyllabon ' ; while Robert 
Greene, who had written many wearisome rhymed dramas, talked 
of making ' verses jet on the stage in tragical buskins, every word 
filling the ear like the fa-burden of Bow bell, daring God out of 
heaven with that atheist, Tamburlan, or blaspheming with the mad 
priest of the Sun.' But our 'hcentiate iambic' was destined to 
triumph. Greene and Nash gave way before inevitable fate, and 
wrote some better plays in consequence. 

"Let us inquire what change Marlowe really introduced, and 
what was his theory of dramatic versification. He found the ten- 
syllabled heroic line monotonous, monosyllabic, and divided into 
five feet of alternate short and long. He left it various in form 
and structure, sometimes redundant by a syllable, sometimes defi- 
cient, enriched with unexpected emphases and changes in the 
beat. He found no sequence or attempt at periods; one line 
succeeded another with insipid regularity, and all were made after 
the same model. He grouped his verse according to the sense, 
obeying an internal law of melody, and allowing the thought con- 
tained in his words to dominate over their form. He did not 
force his metre to preserve a fixed and unalterable type, but suf- 
fered it to assume most variable modulations, the whole beauty of 
which depended upon their perfect adaptation to the current of 
his ideas. By these means he was able to produce the double 
effect of variety and unity, to preserve the fixed march of his 
chosen metre, and yet, by subtle alterations in the pauses, speed, 
and grouping of the syllables, to make one measure represent a 
thousand. Used in this fashion, blank verse became a Proteus. 
It resembled music, which requires regular time and rhythm ; but, 



6o SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 

by the employment of phrase, induces a higher kind of melody to 
rise above the common and prosaic beat of time. Bad writers of 
blank verse, like Marlowe's predecessors, or like those who in all 
ages have been deficient in plastic energy and power of harmoni- 
ous modulation, produce successions of monotonous iambic lines, 
sacrificing all the poetry of expression to the mechanism of their 
art. Metre with them ceases to be the organic body of a vital 
thought, and becomes a mere framework. And bad critics praise 
them for the very faults of tameness and monotony which they 
miscall regularity of numbers. It was thus that the sublimest as 
well as the most audacious of Milton's essays in versification fell 
under the censure of Jonson." 

The best form of Marlowe's verse may be said to have been the 
ground, the tmie, the plain song, on which Shakespeare raised his 
future dramatic descants.* But he first got the plain song to per- 
fection before he raised any descants thereupon. He first learned 
to move with freedom and grace within the limits of five measures. 
But here the misconception must be guarded against that Shake- 
speare's development as an artist proceeded from form to spirit. 
His verse, it is plain to see, developed in certain directions. But 
the change of form which it gradually underwent, from first to last, 
barring certain conventionalities, was not by imposition of the for- 
eign hand, — was not superinduced. Its development was not so 
much ab ext7'a as ab intra. When we consider that in some of 
his earliest plays, sentiment predominates over thought, the poetic 
over the dramatic, we must admit that the verse of these plays, 
(the more or less conscious imitation of his predecessors and co- 
temporaries, and the traditional demands of the theatre, perhaps, 
being sufficiently taken into account,) is quite as organic as that 
of his latest, so far as the spirit that 7noulds it is concerned. It 
was because the man Shakespeare, in the later period of his career, 



* " Shakespeare's metre was a free offspring of the ear, owing little but its 
generic form to his predecessors and contemporaries." Halliwell-Phillipps's 
" Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare," 5th ed. p. 204. 



SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 6 1 

had grown, spiritually, intellectually, and morally — had grown in 
self-knowledge and in world-wisdom, — had taken the measure of 
those proportions by which the moral elements of the world are 
balanced, — and, more than all, had reached a fuller capability of 
dramatic identification, the fullest ever reached by man, — that the 
language- shaping of his latest plays differs so materially from that 
of his earliest plays. It is not so much the difference between 
the work of an apprentice and the work of a master (though it 
must be admitted that he had to serve an apprenticeship, like the 
rest of mortals), as it is the difference between genius in the bud 
and genius in full bloom. The student of his verse must not there- 
fore reason after the theory of evolution, as it is often understood 
in these days, but must reason in a directly opposite direction, 
namely, from pre-existent spirit to form. " Every spirit makes its 
house," says Emerson, '' and we can give a shrewd guess from the 
house to its inhabitant." And Spenser, in his Hymn in Honor of 

Beauty, says : 

" Of the soul, the body form doth take ; 
For soul is form, and doth the body make." 

It may be stated in a general way that the development of 
Shakespeare's verse proceeds from the recitative to the sponta- 
neous, and in accordance with this development, it at first moves 
obediently within metrical limits, gradually gaining in melody and 
grace until it reaches the highest possible freedom of movement 
within those limits, and realizes its fullest dramatic capabilities ; 
it then gradually transgresses them more and more until, in the 
latest plays. The Winter's Tale, Cymbehne, and The Tempest, it 
is often but slightly other than rhythmical prose — an unbroken 
pentameter measure not being returned to sufficiently often to be 
felt as a standard. For it should be distinctly understood (it has 
not been by a great many writers of blank verse), that however 
cunningly varied the pause may be, variety ceases to be variety 
when the standard pentameter measure is wandered from to such 
an extent that it is no longer in the feehngs even as a sub-con- 
sciousness. 



62 SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 

Suppose that twenty or more consecutive verses were broken 
thus (the three dots at the ending of some of the verses indicating 
that those verses run on into the following) : 



The pause-melody would be quite annulled, for the pentameter 
standard would cease to be in the feelings. Effective variety there 
would be none, for the simple reason that there would be nothing 
varied from. Milton understood this, and always acted upon it. 
There is no other blank verse in the literature, in which the pause- 
melody constitutes so large a feature as it does in Milton's. And 
it will be found to be due to his skilful management of the pen- 
tameter standard. 

Masson remarks that " the most frequent Csesura * in Milton's 
Blank Verse is at the end of the third foot {i.e., generally after the 
sixth syllable, though it may occasionally be after the seventh, or 
even after the eighth) : e.g., — 



* By * Caesura ' he means, as he explains above, " the pause attending the 
conclusion of a period, or of some logical section of a period, when that pause 
occurs anywhere else than at the end of a line." 



SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 63 

*' And took in strains that might create a soul 
Under the ribs of Death." || 

** In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades 
High overarched embower." || 

" Prone on the flood extended long and large 
Lay floating many a rood." || 

" Dropt from the zenith, like a falling star, 
On Lemnos, the ^gean isle." |1 

This, I think, is also Shakespeare's favorite Caesura. Next in 
frequency in Milton is the Caesura after the second foot (generally 
the fourth syllable) : e.g., — 

' ' A thousand demigods on golden seats 
Frequent and full." || 

After these two, but a long way after them, the most common 
are the Caesura in the middle of the third foot (generally after the 
fifth syllable), and that in the middle of the fourth foot (generally 
after the seventh syllable) : e.g., — 

"shapes and forms, 
The heads and leaders thither haste where stood 
Their great Commander." || 

*' Lay vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf 
Confounded, though immortal." H 

Considerably less frequent still is the Caesura after the completed 
fourth foot (generally the eighth syllable) ; and still more rare, 
though occasional, are the Caesuras at the middle of the second 
foot (generally after the third syllable) and after the first com- 
pleted foot (generally the second syllable) : — 

*' Anguish and doubt and fear and sorrow and pain 
From mortal or immortal minds. |1 Thus they" 



64 SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 

" For now the thought 
Both of lost happiness and lasting pain 
Torments him. || Round he throws his baleful eyes." 

" And now his heart 
Distends with pride, and hardening in his strength, 
Glories : || for never since created man " 

Very rare indeed is the Caesura in the middle of the fifth foot 
{i.e., after what is generally the ninth syllable) ; but there are 
instances : 

" Were it a draught for Juno when she banquets, 
I would not taste thy treasonous offer. || None 
But such as are good men can give good things." 

Hardly to be found at all is the Caesura after the first syllable or 
in the middle of the first foot ; but this may pass as an instance : 

*' The Ionian Gods, of Javan's issue held 

Gods: II yet confessed later than Heaven and Earth." 

Cowper, in the Preface to his translation of the Iliad, after speak- 
ing of the greater difficulty of writing blank verse than rhymed 
verse, adds : " He [the poet] in order that he may be musical, 
must exhibit all the variations, as he proceeds, of which ten sylla- 
bles are susceptible ; between the first syllable and the last there 
is no place at which he must not occasionally pause, and the place 
of the pause must be perpetually shifted." 

But he omits to say one very important thing, without which 
variation of pause will not result in pause-melody, but in metrical 
chaos ; namely, that an unbrokefi pentameter measure must be re- 
turned to sufficiently often for it to be felt as a standard. 

I would say here, by the way, that Milton often secures what 
might be called an etnphasis melody, by the variation of the posi- 
tions of the emphatic syllables. It will be found that there are four 
chief places in his verse where the logical emphasis falls, namely, 
the 4th and 8th, and 6th and loth syllables of the verse. If the 
emphasis falls on the 4th, the next generally falls on the 8th ; if on 



SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 65 

the 6th, then on the loth. Frequently in connection with the 6th 

and loth, it also falls on the second. 

The opening lines of the '' Paradise Lost " afford a good illustration 

of this : 

" Of Man's first disobedience, and the fr?//t 

Of that forb/dden tree, whose m(?rtal taste 

Brought d^rtith into the w^rld, and all our w^e, 

With loss of ^den, till one gxea\.^x Man 

Restore us and xtgaiw the blissful se^t, 

Sing, heavenly Mz/se, that on the secret top 

Of (9reb, or of S/nai, didst inspire 

That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed, 

In the begmning how the hert:vens and earth 

Rose out of Ch^os : or, if S/on hill 

Delight thee more, and Siloa's br^^k that flow'd 

Fast by the t'racle of G^^d, I thence 

Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song. 

That with no m/ddle flight intends to soar 

Ab^ve the Aonian mount, while it pursues 

Things wnattempted yet in prose or rliyme." 

The emphatic syllables are indicated by the itahcized vowels. 
The following exhibits the emphasis scheme as to locations of 
the emphasized syllables in the several verses : 

w W W^-W W-li. 

w ^ w _ w A. w _ w iii 



w 


2_ 


\J 





v^ 


J^ 


v^ 





W 


JL 


w 


_2_ 


w 


— 


\J 


_c_ 


w 


— 


\J 


iP: 


w 


— 


v^ 


-^ 


\J 


— 


w 


_8_ 


\J 


— 


w 


— 


\J 


-i- 


KJ 


— 


\j 


_8 


w 


— 


\~f 


— 


w 


-i- 


W 


— 


w 


_8_ 


KJ 


— 


v^ 


— 


v^ 




W 





\J 


_8_ 


\y 





w 


— 


^ 


-^ 


vv 


— 


\J 


_8_ 


w 


— 


\J 





w 


^- 


w 





w 


_8_ 


w 





\J 


_2_ 


w 





\J 


JL 


\J 





w 


JO 



e6 SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 

But the most effective epic movement is inadequate to the 
demands of the freest dramatic movement, to which metrical re- 
straint must, at times, entirely give way, as it does in those scenes 
of Shakespeare's Plays, wherein the completest dramatic identifi- 
cation is reached. The verse is verse only to the eye, not to the 
ear. 

In the First Folio, we meet with sets of broken verses which 
editors have taken the pains to arrange into pentameter measure. 
But what is gained thereby? Nothing more than that it is made 
verse to the eye ; the effect upon the ear is of course not changed. 
The sections of blank verse might all be printed as separate Hnes. 
There would, in fact, be some advantage in so doing. The recur- 
rence of the unbroken pentameter measure could thus be better 
exhibited to the eye. 

To return. The development of Shakespeare's verse proceeds 
from the recitative to the spontaneous. 

Any one who will read aloud two or three of the earliest plays, 
and two or three of the latest (and he need not be particular 
about their being the very earliest or the very latest), will find 
that the former ask a quite different elocution from that of the 
latter. The elocution of the former, whatever may be any one's 
habits as a reader, will naturally run more or less into the recita- 
tive style of expression — will be such as a reader is apt to give to 
matter previously prepared; the elocution of the latter will, as 
naturally, divell more upon the thought, as if it, the thought, were 
having its genesis in the mind, at the time of its expression. 

In the composition of some of the earlier Plays, sentiment with 
the poet, was, as I have said, often predominant over thought — 
his mood was often more poetic than dramatic — and he had, in 
consequence, the tune, the plain song, more in his feehngs ; later, 
when sentiment was to a considerable extent displaced by thought, 
when the poetic mood yielded almost entirely to dramatic identi- 
fication, the plain song was sunk in the descants. 

It is not, indeed, necessary to read entit'e plays of the poet's 
earliest and latest workmanship to feel this ; a few passages taken 



SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 6/ 

at random from the verse-portions of the plays, will suffice, so 
marked is the difference of the language-shaping, and yet it is 
felt to be the language of one and the same mind, but the same 
mind under different attitudes. Again : the gradual and regular 
changes which Shakespeare's language- shaping underwent, must 
have wrought changes in the stage-elocution — which changes 
may, in turn, have had a reactionary effect upon his latest style. 
At the first great outburst of the Drama, in the reign of Elizabeth, 
the stage-elocution must have been more or less of the recitative 
style, and inflated withal. This is inferable from the versification 
which preceded Shakespeare's ; and there was no doubt a tradi- 
tional style, dating far back, which had to be counteracted to some 
extent, before the way was open for the effective, natural, and 
deliberate style which, there is evidence, Richard Burbadge must 
have practised. In " A Funeral Elegy on the death of the famous 
Actor, Richard Burbadge, who died on Saturday in Lent, 13th of 
March, 16 18," it is said of his elocution, that "not a word did fall 
Without just weight to ballast it withal." 

We learn from this Elegy (there is, however, some question as 
to its genuineness*), the interesting fact that Burbadge played 
twelve parts in Shakespeare's Plays, namely Shylock, Richard III., 
Prince Henry, Romeo, Henry V., Brutus, Hamlet, Othello, Lear, 
Macbeth, Pericles, and Coriolanus. And he may have played 
others. The long and intimate relationship which existed between 
Shakespeare and Burbadge, must have resulted in a mutual advan- 
tage. The one wrote better plays, perhaps, in having such an 
actor to impersonate the principal characters, and the other had 
his best powers brought into play and developed in having such a 
dramatist to provide him with such characters. It would be in- 
teresting to know to what extent the excellences of one were 
reflected upon those of the other. It can be safely inferred that 
their mutual obligations must have been considerable. 

* See " Shakespeare's Centurie of Prayse : by Dr. C. INI. Ingleby." 2d 
edition, p. 132. 



68 SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 

Contemporaneously with the Recitative form of Shakespeare's 
blank verse, rhymes more or less abound, and they gradually 
diminish with the progress of the verse toward the spontaneous, 
more dramatic form. In the Recitative period, sentiment with the 
poet was often predominant over thought, his mood was more 
poetic than dramatic, and he had, in consequence, the tune, the 
plain song, more in his feelings. The metre of this plain song is, 
as a general thing, marked by a strong word or syllable in the 5 th 
foot, upon which the voice can and must press ; and this marking 
of the metre, is, under certain emotional cojiditions, enforced by 
rhyme. 

In Love's Labor's Lost there are about iioo rhyming verses; 
in A Midsummer Night's Dream, about 900 ; in Romeo and Juliet, 
about 500; in Richard IL, over 500. In the intermediate period 
between the more decidedly recitative, and the more decidedly 
spontaneous, periods, rhymes keep gradually diminishing ; and in 
the latest period of the poet's work, they are used very sparingly, 
and for some special purpose — for the rounding off of a scene, 
etc. In Cymbeline, there are about 100 ; in Coriolanus and in 
Antony and Cleopatra, about 40 ; in The Tempest, but 2 ; and in 
The Winter's Tale, there are none at all, except those in the Chorus 
which introduces the 4th Act ; and it's questionable whether this 
Chorus was written by Shakespeare. 

Though the proportion of rhyming to blank verses may indicate 
the period, whether recitative or spontaneous, to which a play 
belongs, rhyme is, however, only one of a number of phenomena 
which have to be taken into account, in determining approxi- 
mately the place of a play in the chronological order. And this 
can be said with equal truth, and without exception, of all other 
tests. 

Of two early Plays, the fact that one contains 100, or 200, or 
even 300 rhymes, more or less than the other, the whole number 
of verses in each play being taken into account, is, of itself, no 
evidence that it came before, or followed, the other in composi- 
tion. Though Shakespeare appropriated conventional forms of 



SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 69 

language, he never servilely subjected his mind and feelings to 
them ; and his using more rhymes or less rhymes in one early 
play than in another, would depend upon the pitch of the poetic 
or dramatic key in which it happened to be written. Every 
reader of A Midsummer Night's Dream must feel that rhyme 
is an inseparable adjunct to the speeches of those persons of the 
Drama who are in its main current — if adjunct that can be called 
which, in this play, particularly, is so organic an element of the 
language-shaping. Sometimes the feeling under which the verse 
moves reaches out after a double rhyme : 

' ' The will of man is by his reason sway'd ; 
And reason says you are the worthier maid. 
Things growing are not ripe until their season: 
So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason ; " 

— A. II. Sc. ii. 111-114. 

And in one case, the rebounding pitch of the speaker's feelings, 
or spirits, exhibits itself in a repetition of the same rhyme through 
a number of successive verses : 

' ' Be kind and courteous to this gentleman ; 
Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes ; 
Feed him with apricocks and dewberries, 
With purple grapes, green figs and mulberries ; 
The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees. 
And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs, 
And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes. 
To have my love to bed and to arise ; 
And pluck the wings from painted butterflies 
To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes — 
Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies." 

— A, III. Sc. i. 167-177. 

Now if rhyme, at the outset of his career, had been a mere 
matter of adoption with the poet, and he had employed it simply 
because he Hked it, it wouldn't be of much account in gauging 
the poetic pitch of a play. But as it is employed in A Mid- 
summer Night's Dream, the reader must feel that it is essential 



yO SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 

to the poetic pitch of the play. The poet, with a more dramatic 
purpose, might have previously written a number of plays on a 
lower poetic key, and have used, in consequence, fewer rhymes. 
It is quite certain that he did previously write such plays. That 
he could not have written a more dramatic play at the time he 
composed A Midsummer Night's Dream, is not for a moment to 
be supposed. 

Rhyme, by itself, must be, as he employs it, a somewhat un- 
reliable chronological test except in determining whether a play 
be an early or a late one. 

The place of a pause or a break in a verse has some rela- 
tion to the current of the feeling. The ordinary comma-pause 
doesn't make much difference in the movement of a verse, one 
way or another ; but where a sentence closes within a verse, with a 
complete foot, the break is more marked than where it closes with 
the light syllable of the iamb, the next sentence beginning with 
the heavy syllable. In the latter case, the feeling of the current 
of the verse is more or less sustained, though there is a close in 
the thought, as the following verses from Romeo and JuHet show : 

O, where is Rom^t?? Saw you him to day? 

Well, in that hit you miss: she'll not be hit 
With Cupid's arrow ; she hath Dian's wit, 

A man, young la^ ! /^dy, such a man 

You are a lov<?r ; borrow Cupid's wings. 

She is the Fairies' midwife ; and she comes 

And sleeps again. This is that very Mab 

This being the case, we should expect a priori the pauses or 
breaks to be more frequently after the light syllables, in the more 
smoothly flowing verses of the recitative form of Shakespeare's 
verse ; and so I have found them to be, in going over a number 
of Plays having this form of verse. It may be said that the place 
of the pause is determined, more or less, by the verse-sense of the 



SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 7 1 

poet, at the time of his writing. When his verse-sense is strong, 
the pauses coming after the hght syllable of an iamb will pre- 
dominate ; as his verse-sense goes down, so to speak, there will be 
an increase in the pauses after complete feet. 

In King John, Richard II., Parts I. and II. of Henry IV., and 
Henry V., the dates of whose composition range about from 1596 
to 1599, the recitative form of verse reaches its highest degree of 
freedom, vigor, and sweep, and realizes its fullest dramatic capa- 
bihties. The best blank verse in these plays, presents a strong 
contrast to that of the poet's earhest plays, Love's Labor's Lost, 
for example. 

Take as a fair specimen of the blank verse of the latter play, 
the speech of the Princess, wherein she commissions Boyet to 
secure for her a personal conference with the King (A. II. Sc. i. 
13-34) : 

'* Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean. 
Needs not the painted flourish 0/ your praise : 
Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye. 
Not uttered by base sale of chapman's tongues : 
I am less proud to hear you tell my worth 
Than you much willing to be counted wise 
In spending your wit in the praise of mine. 
But now to task the tasker : good Boyet, 
You are not ignorant, all-telling fame 
Doth noise abroad, Navarre hath made a vow, 
Till painful duty shall outwear three years, 
No woman may approach his silent court : 
Therefore to's seemeth it a needful course. 
Before we enter his forbidden gates, 
To know his pleasure : and in that behalf, 
Bold of your worthiness, we single you 
As our best-moving fair solicitor. 
Tell him, the daughter of the King of France, 
On serious business craving quick dispatch. 
Importunes personal conference with his grace : 
Haste, signify so much ; while we attend. 
Like humble-visa^'d suitors, his high will." 



72 SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 

Contrast with this speech the following speech of King John 
to Hubert, A. III. Sc. iii, in which he intimates to Hubert his 
wish to have the little prince put out of the way. The thought 
keeps on the wing, so to speak, through 19 verses, and the verse 
exhibits a union of strength, lightsomeness, and elasticity. There 
is perhaps no passage, in any earlier play, in which the blank verse 
has attained to such a sweep as it has in this passage. 

The nineteen lines to which I allude, begin with the words 

"If the midnight bell." 

Hubert says : '^ I am much bounden to your majesty " ; and the 
King replies : 

" Good friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet. 
But thou shalt have ; and creep time ne'er so slow, 
Yet it shall come for me to do thee good. 
I had a thing to say, — but let it go. 
The sun is in the heaven, and the proud day, 
Attended with the pleasures of the world, 
Is all too wanton and too full of gawds 
To give me audience. If the midnight bell 
Did, with his iron tongue and brazen mouth, 
Sound on into the drowsy race of night ; 
If this same were a churchyard where we stand, 
And thou possessed with a thousand wrongs. 
Or if that surly spirit, melancholy, 
Had bak'd thy blood and made it heavy, thick. 
Which else runs tickling up and down the veins, 
Making that idiot, laughter, keep men's eyes 
And strain their cheeks to idle merriment, 
A passion hateful to my purposes. 
Or if that thou couldst see me without eyes. 
Hear me without thine ears, and make reply 
Without a tongue, using conceit alone. 
Without eyes, ears, and harmful sound of words; 
Then, in despite of brooded watchful day, 
I would into thy bosom pour my thoughts. 
But, ah, I will not ! — yet I love thee well ; 
And, by my troth, I think thou lov'st me well." 



SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 73 

There's a moral significance in the suspended construction of 
the language. The mind of the dastard king hovers over the 
subject of the ungodly act, and dares not alight upon it ; and the 
verse in its uncadenced movement admirably registers the speaker's 
state of mind. 

Another example of the freedom attained in the recitative form 
of Shakespeare's verse, and of the dramatic capabihties reahzed 
by it, is afforded by the speech of Hotspur, in the 3d Scene of the 
ist Act of I Henry IV. He has been charged with refusing to 
give up the prisoners taken at Holmedon. Northumberland says 
to the king : 

" Those prisoners in your highness^ name demanded, 
Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took, 
Were, as he says, not with such strength denied 
As is delivered to your majesty : 
Either envy, therefore, or misprision, 
Is guilty of this fault, and not my son." 

It will be observed that of the 41 verses of which Hotspur's 
speech is composed, but two or three run into the verses following 
them ; and yet there's very little impression of metrical restraint 
upon the language. 

" My liege, I did deny no prisoners, 
But, I remember, when the fight was done. 
When I was dry with rage and extreme toil. 
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword, 
Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dress'd. 
Fresh as a bridegroom ; and his chin new reap'd, 
Showed like a stubble-land at harvest home ; 
He was perfumed like a milliner : 
And Hwixt his finger and his thumb he held 
A pouncet-box, which ever and anon 
He gave his nose, and took't away again ; — 
Who, therewith angry, when it next came there. 
Took it in snuif : — and still he smiled, and talk'd ; 
And, as the soldiers bore dead bodies by. 
He caird them — untaught knaves, unmannerly, 



74 SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 

To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse 

Betwixt the wind and his nobility. 

With many holiday and lady terms 

He question^ me ; among the rest, demanded 

My prisoners, in your majesty's behalf. 

I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold. 

To be so pestered with a popinjay, 

Out of my grief and my impatience, 

Answered neglectingly I know not what ; 

He should, or he should not ; — for he made me mad 

To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet, 

And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman 

Of guns and drums, and wounds (God save the mark !) 

And telling me the sovereign'st thing on earth 

Was parmaceti, for an inward bruise ; 

And that it was great pity, so it was, 

That villanous salt-petre should be digg'd 

Out of the bowels of the harmless earth, 

Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed 

So cowardly ; and but for these vile guns, 

He would himself have been a soldier. 

This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord, 

I answered indirectly as I said ; 

And I beseech you, let not his report 

Come current for an accusation 

Betwixt my love and your high majesty." 

In the I St Scene of the 4th Act, Hotspur says, alluding to the 

King, 

" Where is his son, 

The nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales, 

And his comrades, that daflPd the world aside, 

And bid it pass ? " 

Sir Richard Vernon replies : 

" All furnish'd, all in arms ; 
All plumed like estridges that with the wind 
Bate it like eagles having lately bathed ; 
Glittering in golden coats like images ; 



SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 75 

As full of spirit as the month of May, 

And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer. 

Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls. 

I saw young Harry, with his beaver on, 

His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm'd. 

Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury, 

And vault it with such ease into his seat, 

As if an angel dropped down from the clouds. 

To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, 

And witch the world with noble horsemanship." 

A passage like this may be regarded as the climax of the free- 
dom of movement and the bounding vigor which Shakespeare's 
blank verse reached in its recitative form — that form, to repeat, 
in which the normal pentameter measure of the verse determines 
more or less the orbit of the thought. When it reached this vigor- 
ous, and, at the same time, buoyant metrical movement, the poet 
had realized the extreme dramatic capabilities of this form of blank 
verse. But for the freest movement of his dramatic thought in its 
fullest maturity, he passed beyond the recitative form of blank 
verse into that which I have named the spontaneous, the most 
obvious characteristics of which, are : 
I St. The metre is sunk more or less, 

a. Through the weakness of the word receiving the 5th ictus of 
the verse. 

b. By a looser melodious fusion of the verse, and by a more 
arbitrary use of pauses and breaks. 

2d. Extra end-syllables crop out more and more, as the recita- 
tive form of verse is departed from. 

And first : 

The Metre is sunk more or less, a. Through the weakness of 
the word receiving the 5th ictus of the verse. 

As the poet advances in dramatic identification, the metre of 
his blank verse yields more and more to the movement of the 
thought. The firmest resting place for the voice, in the more 
markedly recitative style, is the accented syllable or word of the 



76 SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 

5th foot; in the spontaneous style, this syllable or word is fre- 
quently the lightest on which the voice can press, and sometimes 
this place in the verse is occupied by a proclitic particle on which 
it cannot press at all, but must move on into the succeeding verse. 
The normal metre is thus, at times, more or less lost to the feel- 
ings, and only the foot rhythm of the language is felt. In The 
Winter's Tale verses frequently end with such atonic or proclitic 
words as a, are, and, as, but, if, nor, or, of, for, the, to, which, 
with : 

Temptations have since then been born to's : for 

And his pond fish'd by his next neighbor (by 
Sir Smile, his neighbour:) 

A lip of much contempt, speeds from me, and 

Which puts some of us in distemper ; but 

Which must be ev'n as swiftly followed as 

Turn then my freshest reputation to 

By each particular star in heaven and 

I know not: but Pm sure 'tis safer to 

Still neighbour mine. My ships are ready and 

I will respect thee as a father if 

You'll kiss me hard, and speak to me as if 

Freed and enfranchised; not a party to 
The anger of the king nor guilty of 

They should not laugh if I could reach them, nor 

Which contradicts my accusation and 

Which to deny concerns more than avails ; for as 

Mine own, nor any thing to any, if 

Of celebration of that nuptial which 



SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 77 

Which does mend nature, change it rather, but 
Most incident to maids ; bold oxlips and 
Hides not his visage from our cottage, but 
Resolv'd for flight: now were I happy if 
There's no disjunction to be made, but by 
She is as forward of her breeding as 
That heirless it hath made my kingdom ; and 
Might thus have stood begetting wonder, as 
Fled from his father, from his hopes, and with 
The father of this seeming lady and 
My evils conjured to remembrance, and 

b. By a looser melodious fusion of the verse^ and by a more 
arbitrary use of pauses a?td breaks. 

When feeling or sentiment is in the ascendant over the dramatic, 
its plastic or unifying power is manifested in a closer and more 
melodious fusion of the verse — the pauses and breaks are made 
with more reference to the standard measure of the verse, that is, 
they do not occur in such a way as to cause the standard to 
be sunk in the varied measures. But take the following speech 
from Cymbehne, A. III. Sc. ii. 50-70, and note how the melody 
fusion of the verses is reduced, and how the standard measure of 
the verse is sunk in the varied measures. 

Imogen learns that her husband is at Milford-Haven, and is 
eager to go to him there : 

" O, for a horse with wings ! Hear''st thou, Pisanio? 
He is at Milford-Haven : read, and tell me 
How far 'tis thither. If one of mean affairs 
May plod it in a week, why may not I 
Glide thither in a day? then, true Pisanio, — 
Who longest, like me, to see thy lord ; who long'st, — 



yS SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 

O, let me bate, — but not like me — yet longest, 

But in a fainter kind : — O, not like me ; 

For mine's beyond beyond — say, and speak thick, — 

Love's counsellor should fill the bores of hearing, 

To the smothering of the sense — how far it is 

To this same blessed Milford : and by the way 

Tell me how Wales was made so happy as 

To inherit such an haven : but, first of all, 

How we may steal from hence, and for the gap 

That we shall make in time, from our hence-going 

And our return, to excuse : but first, how get hence. 

Why should excuse be born or ere begot ? 

We'll talk of that hereafter. Prithee, speak, 

How many score of miles may we well ride 

'Twixt hour and hour? " 

2d. Extra end-syllables ci^op out more and more, as the recita- 
tive form of verse is departed from. 

As used by Fletcher, extra end-syllables are but little more than 
a mere mannerism, that is, they are not to any extent, organic — 
are not occasioned by the movement of the thought or feeling. 
Their origin may perhaps be attributed partly to Italian influence, 
and as employed by Fletcher they may have been largely a mere 
adoption — an adoption which became, in time, more or less a 
mere habit. The dramatic capabilities of the double ending are 
therefore not realized, to any extent, in Fletcher's verse, by reason 
of the over-frequency of its occurrence. 

Shakespeare made use of the conventional in other things than 
forms of language ; he, indeed, absorbed all that was conventional 
in the literature of his age ; but such was the force and plastic 
power of his genius, that he always infused into conventional forms 
a new soul — he translated them from the conventional into the 
organic ; the formal becomes smoothed down into spontaneous 
grace. He is the freest of all authors from mannerisms, and that 
is one reason why (although the habitual student of his works 
comes, in time, to feel what is Shakespearian and what is not), he 
cannot be imitated with any success ; there is not that in his die- 



SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 



79 



tion which the imitator generally lays hold of — an evidence of 
the organic character of his language-shaping. For to the degree 
that expression is organic, does imitation become difficult, which 
generally lays hold on mannerisms and mere excrescences. The 
organic can be reproduced only to the extent that the formative 
spirit has a palingenesis in another mind. 

Shakespeare's extra end-syllables were something more than an 
adoption with him ; * and it becomes important in the study of 
his verse to determine to what extent they are conventional and to 
what extent they are organic, or inseparable from the expression 
of certain modes of feeling and of mind movement. 

This may be said in a general way, that what is true of his use 
of rhyme is equally true of his use of extra end-syllables — they 
are employed when sought for — when the feeling, so to speak, 
reaches out for them. And of two given plays, if one has a con- 
siderable number of extra end-syllables more than another, it is 
not a legitimate inference that it was composed after the other ; 
unless it be assumed that the use of extra end-syllables was a mere 
habit that grew upon the poet, in each succeeding Play, in the 
later period of his workmanship. But no one who reads Shake- 
speare with due faith in the organic significance, in general, of 
his language-shaping, would assume anything of the kind. He 



* '* The temperate introduction of lines with the hypermetrical syllable has 
often a pleasing effect, but during the last few years of the poet's career, their 
immoderate use was affected by our dramatists, and although, for the most 
part, Shakespeare's metre was a free offspring of the ear, owing little but its 
generic form to his predecessors and contemporaries, it appears certain that, 
in the present instance [Henry VIII.], he suffered himself to be influenced 
by this undesirable fashion." — Halliwell-Phillipps's " Outlines of the Life of 
Shakespeare," 5th ed. p. 204. 

In the " Illustrative Notes," p. 586, No. 258, the author adds : " Shakespeare 
probably wrote verse as easily as prose, and very few species of dramatic metre 
had then taken an absolute form by precedent. Even if it had been otherwise, 
the metrical ear, which, like that for music, is a natural gift, must, in his case, 
have revolted from a subjection to normal restrictions." 



8o SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 

would seek rather to penetrate to the moulding spirit resident 
within the forms, and to discover why in one play that mould- 
ing spirit reached out oftener after extra end-syllables than it did 
in the other. If he succeed in doing this, or think he has suc- 
ceeded, he may not indeed have a clue to the priority or subse- 
quence of one of two or more plays, but he will have a new assur- 
ance of the flexibiUty of the poet's spirit, and an increased faith 
in the organic nature of his forms. 

Extra end-syllables are not, indeed, confined to the spontaneous 
form of his verse — they occur often where the recitative form is 
in the ascendent. 

In Hamlet's first soliloquy, A. I. Sc. ii. 129-158, beginning, 

♦' Oh, that this too too solid flesh would melt," 

the effect of the additional light syllables which occur both at the 
end of, and within the verses, is readily felt as an organic effect — 
they express the rebound of the speaker's impulsive feeUng : 

"Oh, that this too too solid flesh would melt, 
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew : 
Or that the Everlasting had not fixt 
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter. O God, O God ! 
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable 
Seems to me all the uses of this world ! 
Fie on't ! oh fie, fie, 'tis an unweeded garden 
That grows to seed : things rank and gross in nature 
Possess it merely. That it should come to this ! 
But two months dead ! Nay, not so much, not two : 
• So excellent a king, that was to this 
Hyperion to a Satyr : so loving to my mother, 
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven 
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and Earth 
Must I remember? Why she would hang on him, 
As if encrease of appetite had grown 
By what it fed on ; and yet within a month — 
Let me not think on't— Frailty, thy name is woman ! — 
A little month, or ere those shoes were old 



SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 8 1 

With which she followed my poor father's body, 

Like Niobe, all tears, — why she, even she, — 

(O Heaven ! a beast that wants discourse of reason. 

Would have mourn'd longer) married with my uncle, 

My father's brother, but no more like my father 

Than I to Hercules. Within a month? 

Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears 

Had left the flushing of her galled eyes, 

She married ! O, most wicked speed, to post 

With such dexterity to incestuous sheets ! 

It is not, nor it cannot come to good. 

But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue." 

In the soliloquy, "To be or not to be," the additional light 
syllables impart a reflectiveness of tone to the language : 

" To be or not to be, that is the question : 
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer 
The slings and arrows of outrageous Yortune, 
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, 
And by opposing end thejn : " 

I fancy that Shakespeare must sometimes have heard some of 
the speeches of his characters independently of the thoughts ex- 
pressed, and that he fashioned them after the sound that was in 
his mind. 

Although the particular effects of the extra end- syllables cannot 
always be set forth, every one who is susceptible to verse, must 
feel more or less their organic character, in Shakespeare's verse. 

There is often an effective mingling of verses having extra end- 
syllables with verses having the normal ending on accented sylla- 
bles. The soliloquy of Gloster with which the play of Richard III. 
opens, is a good illustration of this. 

The extra end-syllable has an agreeable effect when it crops out 
after a succession of smooth verses, as in the 4th verse of this 
soliloquy : 

" Now is the winter of our discontent 
Made glorious summer by this sun of York : 



82 SHAKESPEARE'S VERSE. 

And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house 
In the deep bosom of the ocean bun>^." 

In the four following verses of the soliloquy (28-31), there is 
an effective alternation of the normal and of extra-syllable endings : 

" And therefore, since I cannot prove a lov^r, 
To entertain these fair well-spoken days, 
I am determined to prove a vilW« 
And hate the idle pleasures of these days." 

While with Shakespeare the extra end-syllable is more or less 
organic, and imparts a liveliness to the verse, with Fletcher it is 
often a cold, monotonous mannerism. 



DISTINCTIVE USE OF VERSE AND FROSE. 83 



DISTINCTIVE USE OF VERSE AND PROSE 
IN SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS. 



NO writer has exhibited the power which " the great protago- 
nist in the arena of modern poetry " has exhibited, of mar- 
shaUing words, of stimulating language to its utmost capacity, and 
moulding it into the " infinite variety " of organic form demanded 
by all the possible attitudes of the mind and the sensibilities. I 
say organic form ; for, although he adopted, at the outset, as the 
general tenor of his language, forms employed by his predecessors 
and contemporaries, yet, such was the plastic power of his mind 
and feelings over them that they, the forms, were gradually brought 
more and more under easy submission and became more and more 
organic, or, in other words, inseparable from the thought and emo- 
tion embodied therein. He was the first to mingle, organically, in 
dramatic composition, blank verse and rhyming verse, and prose. 
These are all found in harmonious union, often within the limits of 
a short scene. He may never have defined to his own mind, the 
peculiar and legitimate functions of each of these modes of lan- 
guage-shaping, but he must have had the nicest and most rehable 
feeling as to their use. He passes from blank verse to rhyme and 
from rhyme to prose, and back again to blank verse, and the reader 
feels all the while, generally, perhaps without thinking so, that it's 
the most natural thing in the world to do. The rationale and the 
morale of the varied phases which his verse presents at different 
periods of his career, it is often difficult to determine ; but it is 
not so difficult to note the distinctive use of the two grand divis- 
ions of language-shaping, Prose and Verse, throughout all the 
Plays. In the first place, all the dramatis personae that are not 



84 DISTINCTIVE USE OF VERSE AND 

drawn into the higher movements of thought and feeling, are, gener- 
ally, made to speak in straightforward prose. (This, however, is 
not so true of the earlier Plays as it is of the later. Shakespeare's 
nice sense of the peculiar domains of Verse and Prose was gradu- 
ally developed along with other developments, one of the most 
important of which was humour.* As Dowden says, " Had Shak- 
spere written the play [Richard II.] a few years later, we may 
be certain that the gardener and servants (A. III. Sc. iv.) would 
not have uttered stately speeches in verse, but would have spoken 
homely prose, and that humour would have mingled with the 
pathos of this scene. The same remark may be made with refer- 
ence to the subsequent scene, in which his groom visits the de- 
throned King in the Tower." And even the leading persons of 
the drama, in situations demanding no idealization of language, 
speak often in prose. Hamlet speaks in verse to his mother, to 
his bosom friend Horatio, to the majestic ghost of his father, and 
in his soliloquies ; but to the old chancellor Polonius whom he 
despises, to the time-serving courtiers, to the players, and in the 
scene with the grave-diggers, he speaks in the most off-hand prose. 
But in this last scene, when his mind turns to the great Roman, he 
speaks then not only in verse but in rhymed verse : 

•' Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay, 
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away : 
O, that the earth which kept the world in awe, 
Should patch a wall t'expel the winter's flaw ! " 

A character like Falstaff, speaks, of course, in prose. Great 
and various as are the possibilities by which FalstafPs actual self 
is backed, his higher faculties are always under the cloud of 
sensual indulgence ; and like all sensualists, his mind never rises 
above considerations of self — never reaches that pitch of thought 
and feeling which demands a rhythmical and metrical form of 



* See " Dowden's Shakspere : his Mind and Art." Chap. vii. " The Humour 
of Shakspere." 



PROSE IN SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS. 85 

language. He affects indeed, such a form, in A. II. Sc. iv., of 
I Henry IV. : 

^^ Fal. Well, thou wilt be horribly chid to-morrow when thou 
comest to thy father : if thou love me, practise an answer. 

Prince. Do thou stand for my father, and examine me upon 
the particulars of my Hfe. 

Fal. Shall I ? content : this chair shall be my state, this dagger 
my sceptre, and this cushion my crown. 

Prince. Thy state is taken for a joined-stool, thy golden sceptre 
for a leaden dagger, and thy precious rich crown for a pitiful bald 
crown ! 

Fal. Well, an the fire of grace be not quite out of thee, now 
shalt thou be moved. Give me a cup of sack to make my eyes 
look red, that it may be thought I have wept ; for I must speak in 
passion, and I will do it in King Cambyses' vein. 

Prince. Well, here is my leg. 

Fal. And here is my speech. Stand aside, nobility. 

Hostess. O Jesu, this is excellent sport, i' faith ! 

Fal. Weep not, sweet queen, for trickling tears are vain. 

Hostess. O, the father, how he holds his countenance ! 

Fal. For God's sake, lords, convey my tristful * queen ; 
For tears do stop the flood-gates of her eyes. 

Hostess. O Jesu, he doth it as Uke one of these harlotry players 
as ever I see ! " 

This is all the metrical language which Falstaff utters, except 
the two verses addressed to King Henry V., in 2 Henry IV., A. V. 
Sc. V. 42 and 50 : 

" Fal. God save thy grace. King Hal ! my royal Hal ! . . . 

Chief Justice. Have you your wits? Know you what 'tis you 
speak ? 

Fal. My King ! my Jove ! I speak to thee, my heart ! 

King. I know thee not, old man : fall to thy prayers ; . . ." 

An interesting transition from prose to verse, is shown in the 
3d Scene of the ist Act of The Merchant of Venice. While Bas- 

* Trustful! : Qq., Ff. 



S6 DISTINCTIVE USE OF VERSE AND 

sanio is negotiating with Shylock for a loan of three thousand 
ducats, for three months, for the repayment of which Antonio is 
to be bound, the talk is in business-like prose, and quite unim- 
passioned except in Shylock's speech in reply to Bassanio's pro- 
posal that he dine with him and Antonio : 

" Yes, to smell pork ; to eat of the habitation which your prophet, 
the Nazarite, conjured the devil into. I will buy with you, sell 
with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following ; but I 
will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you." 

This speech, by the way, coming just before the entrance of 
Antonio, serves well as a transition to the language-shaping which 
follows. When Antonio comes in, against whom he has long borne 
bitter grudges for wrongs done him, real or imaginary, Shylock's 
feelings are intensified, and the language is at once moulded into 
metre, the pulse of which rises highest in the following speech : 

" Signior Antonio, many a time and oft, 
In the Rialto, you have rated me 
About my moneys and my usances : 
Still have I borne it with a patient shrug ; 
For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe. 
You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog, 
And spet upon my Jewish gaberdine, 
And all for use of that which is mine own. 
Well then, it now appears you need my help : 
Go to, then ; you come to me, and you say, 

♦ Shylock, we would have moneys : ' you say so ; 
You, that did void your rheum upon my beard, 
And foot me, as you spurn a stranger cur 
Over your threshold — moneys is your suit. 
What should I say to you? Should I not say, 

• Hath a dog money ? Is it possible 

A cur should lend three thousand ducats ? ' Or 
Should I bend low, and in a bondman's key. 
With bated breath and whispering humbleness. 
Say this : 
' Fair sir, you spet on me on Wednesday last ; 



PROSE IN SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS. 8/ 

You spurned me such a day ; another time 
You caird me dog ; and for these courtesies 
ril lend you thus much moneys.^" 

Antonio's reply is the highest-pulsed speech which he utters, in 
the scene ; and then Shylock tones down, and an agreement in 
regard to the loan is finally arrived at. 

The scene is rounded off with two rhymes : 

** Antonio. Hie thee, gentle Jew. {Exit Shylock. 

The Hebrew will turn Christian : he grows kind. 

Bassatiio. I like not fair terms and a villain's mind. 

Antonio. Come on : in this there can be no dismay ; 
My ships come home a month before the day." 

A remarkable illustration, one of the most remarkable, perhaps, 
in Shakespeare, of changes in language-shaping adapted to the 
varied pitch of thought and feeling, is afforded by the 3d Scene of 
the ist Act of Othello, wherein the Moor, accused by Brabantio 
of having won his daughter Desdemona by love-potions and 
witchcraft, makes his defence before the Duke and Senators of 
Venice, and tells the story of his courtship. 

When he addresses the Senators, he employs language indica- 
tive of a self-sustained dignity, but free from the least touch of 
arrogance. There is a certain weight imparted to the movement 
of the verse by a more than usual correspondence of the rhythmi- 
cal ictus with the logical emphasis. The double-endings which 
occur, " masters," "daughter," "offending," "battle," "patience," 
" deliver," " magic," impart a certain decisiveness of tone ; the 
breaks in the verse, too, come after complete feet : 

" Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors, 
My very noble and approved good masters, 
That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter. 
It is most true ; true, I have married her : 
The very head and front of my offending 
Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech, 



88 DISTINCTIVE USE OE VERSE AND 

And little blest with the soft phrase of peace ; 

For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith, 

Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used 

Their dearest action in the tented field ; 

And little of this great world can I speak, 

More than pertains to feats of broil and battle ; 

And therefore little shall I grace my cause 

In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience, 

I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver 

Of my whole course of love ; what drugs, what charms, 

What conjuration and what mighty magic — 

For such proceeding I am charged withal — 

I won his daughter." 

When Othello speaks of his courtship, the stateliness of the 
verse is somewhat reduced, and his speech is characterized by an 
ingenuousness of tone to which the movement of the verse is 
admirably adapted : 

" Her father loved me ; oft invited me ; 
Still question'd me the story of my life, 
From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes, 
That I have pass'd. 

I ran it through, even from my boyish days. 
To the very moment that he bade me tell it ; 
Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances. 
Of moving accidents by flood and field. 
Of hair-breadth scapes i' the imminent deadly breach, 
Of being taken by the insolent foe 
And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence 
And portance in my travels' history : 
Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle, 
Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven, 
It was my hint to speak, — such was the process ; 
And of the Cannibals that each other eat. 
The Anthropophagi and men whose heads 
Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear 
Would Desdemona seriously incline : 
But still the house-affairs would draw her thence : 



PROSE IN SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS. 89 

Which ever as she could with haste dispatch, 

She'ld come again, and with a greedy ear 

Devour up my discourse : which I observing, 

Took once a pliant hour, and found good means 

To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart 

That I would all my pilgrimage dilate, 

Whereof by parcels she had something heard. 

But not intentively : I did consent, 

And often did beguile her of her tears, 

When I did speak of some distressful stroke 

That my youth suffered. My story being done, 

She gave me for my pains a world of sighs : 

She swore, in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange, 

'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful : 

She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd 

That heaven had made her such a man ; she thank'd me, 

And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her, 

I should but teach him how to tell my story. 

And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake : 

She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd, 

And I loved her that she did pity them. 

This only is the witchcraft I have used : 

Here comes the lady ; let her witness it." 

At the close of his story, Desdemona enters. To the question 
of her father, " Do you perceive in all this noble company Where 
most you owe obedience?" she replies in blank verse, which has 
the directness of prose ; the rhythmus, too, is kept down, and the 
whole is raised just so much above prose as is necessary to ex- 
press the daughter's respect for the father — the closeness of their 
relationship not allowing a form of language any more elevated 
than what she employs. The additional light syllables which 
occur at the end of some of the verses, (and there are two within 
the verse, before breaks, " respect | you ; " " your daugh | ter : ") 
serve to neutralize somewhat the rhythmical effect : 

" My noble father, 
I do perceive here a divided duty : 



90 DISTINCTIVE USE OF VERSE AND 

To you I am bound for life and education ; 

My life and education both do learn me 

How to respect you ; you are the lord of duty : 

I am hitherto your daughter : but here's my husband, 

And so much duty as my mother show'd 

To you, preferring you before her father, 

So much I challenge that I may profess 

Due to the Moor my lord." 

The first three lines of Brabantio's reply in which he gives up 
the case, are not distinguishable from prose ; and their off-hand 
movement serves to express the grieved old man's submission to 
the state of things. 

" God be with you ! — I have done. — 
Please it your grace, on to the state affairs ; 
I had rather to adopt a child than get it." 

When he addresses the Moor, his speech is slightly elevated and 
decided in movement, which latter feature is helped by the mono- 
syllabic words : 

" Come hither, Moor: 

I here do give thee that with all my heart. 

Which, but thou hast already, with all my heart 

I would keep from thee. For your sake, jewel, 

I am glad at soul I have no other child ; 

For thy escape would teach me tyranny. 

To hang clogs on them. I have done, my lord." 

Of the Duke's speech in reply, the first three lines are scarcely 
verse at all, and their prose effect is helped by the extra end-sylla- 
bles of the words " sentence," " lovers," " favour." With such an 
introduction, the sententious character of the rest of the speech 
is more brought out. It has a marked rhythmical movement, and 
the metre is enforced by rhyme, and one of the rhymes is rendered 
more emphatic by being a double rhyme, — elided, depended. In 
addition thereto, each couplet constitutes a sentence composed of 
two balanced members, and each member makes a distinct verse : 



PROSE IN SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS. 9 1 

"■ Duke. Let me speak like yourself, and lay a sentence 
Which, as a grise or step, may help these lovers 
Into your favour. 

When remedies are past, the griefs are ended 
By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended. 
To mourn a mischief that is past and gone 
Is the next way to draw new mischief on. 
What cannot be preserved when fortune takes, 
Patience her injury a mockery makes. 
The robb'd that smiles steals something from the thief; 
He robs himself that spends a bootless grief." 

Brabantio, with a bitterness of spirit, retorts in the same senten- 
tious, markedly rhythmical, and strongly rhymed language. But 
as indicating that he is completely done with the case, his speech 
ends with a line of pure prose : " I humbly beseech you, proceed 
to the affairs of state : " 

*' So let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile ; 
We lose it not, so long as we can smile. 
He bears the sentence well, that nothing bears 
But the free comfort which from thence he hears ; 
But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow. 
That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow. 
These sentences, to sugar or to gall, 
Being strong on both sides, are equivocal : 
But words are words ; I never yet did hear 
That the bruised heart was pierced through the ear. 
I humbly beseech you, proceed to the affairs of state." 

The Duke's speech which follows is in the most straightfor- 
ward prose, which is felt to be the only proper medium of a plain 
matter-of-fact order to his general : 

" The Turk with a most mighty preparation makes for Cyprus. 
Othello, the fortitude of the place is best known to you ; and though 
we have there a substitute of most allowed sufficiency, yet opinion, 
a sovereign mistress of effects, throws a more safer voice on you : 
you must therefore be content to slubber the gloss of your new 
fortunes with this more stubborn and boisterous expedition." 



92 DISTINCTIVE USE OF VERSE AND 

Othello replies in blank verse whose movement expresses the 
in procinctu state of the brave soldier's mind : 

** The tyrant custom, most grave senators, 
Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war 
My thrice-driven bed of down : I do agnize 
A natural and prompt alacrity 
I find in hardness ; and do undertake 
These present wars against the Ottomites. 
Most humbly therefore bending to your state, 
I crave fit disposition for my wife. 
Due reference of place and exhibition. 
With such accommodation and besort 
As levels with her breeding." 

To draw the line between the domains of prose and verse, is not 
easy. But Shakespeare's works afford perhaps the best material 
for determining those domains, when the critic shall appear whose 
art vision is clear enough 

" to watch 
The Master work, and catch 
Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play," 

and to penetrate to the laws underlying his use of these forms of 
language. This should be said, however, that Shakespeare adopted 
verse as the general tenor of his language, and therefore expresses 
much in verse that is within the capabilities of prose ; in other 
words, his verse constantly encroaches upon the domain of prose, 
but his prose can never be said to encroach upon the domain of 
verse. 

The nearest approach to it, perhaps, is in the prose speech 
of Hamlet, A. II. Sc. ii. . . . " this goodly frame, the earth, 
seems to me a sterile promontory ; this most excellent canopy, 
the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majesti- 
cal roof, fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to 
me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a 



PROSE IN SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS. 93 

piece of work is a man ! how noble in reason ! how infinite in 
faculty ! in form and moving how express and admirable ! in 
action, how like an angel ! in apprehension how Hke a god ! the 
beauty of the world ! the paragon of animals ! " 

There are two characteristics of the material of legitimate verse 
(characteristics which are the result of the very feehng which pro- 
duces verse), by which it is especially differentiated from prose 
material, namely, the general concreteness and the imaginative 
imputation which it exhibits, resulting from the intense sympathy 
which animates great poets. The concrete is, so to speak, the 
vernacular language, the indispensable medium, wherethrough 
poetic passion is manifested, which, when intense, must needs 
radiate into numerous images furnished by nature and by human 
life. These images may be regarded as the harmonies into which 
the melody or rhythmus of his thought is ever tending to run, and 
the more impassioned this melody or rhythmus, the greater the 
necessity thus to expand itself. 

When Macbeth tells his wife that a dreadful deed shall be com- 
mitted before nightfall, the intensity of his feelings at the time 
radiates into imagery and epithet which are beyond what the most 
impassioned prose could sustain : 

" Ere that the bat hath flown 
His cloister'd flight ; ere to black Hecate's summons 
The shard-borne beetle with its drowsy hums 
Hath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done 
A dead of dreadful note. 

Lady M. What's to be done ? 

Macb. Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, 
Till thou applaud the deed. — Come, seeling night ! 
Skarf up the tender eye of pitiful day, 
And with thy bloody and invisible hand 
Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond 
Which keeps me pale ! — Light thickens and the crow 
Makes wing to the rooky wood : 
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse. 
Whiles night's black agents to their preys do rouse. — 



94 DISTINCTIVE USE OF VERSE AND 

Thou marvelPst at my words : but hold thee still ; 
Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill : " 

It is through his epithets and his metaphors that a great poet 
reveals the intensity of his sympathies, the depth of his spiritual 
insight, and his recognition of the moral aspect of things. If he 
takes in only their familiar and general outlines, and their more 
prominent features, his epithets will, as a consequence, be com- 
monplace ; they will be stock epithets, embodying only the popu- 
lar idea. If his sympathies are feeble, he will not think in and 
by and through his figures, but he will hitch them on to his thought 
and sentiment. In regard to a poet's use of epithets, it may also 
be remarked, that his all-embracing sympathy, and the tendency 
of his imagination to imbue all things with feeling, will often 
cause him to transfer an epithet from the word whose idea it prop- 
erly quahfies, to another to which it is logically inapplicable, but 
which is thus brought more within the embrace of the sympathies j 

for example : 

" Leaked is our bark, 
And we, poor mates, stand on the dying deck, 
Hearing the surges threat : " — T. of A. IV. ii. 20. 

" He only lived but till he was a man ; 
The which no sooner had his prowess confirm'd 
In the unshrinking station where he fought, 
But like a man he died." — Macbeth V. viii. 42. 

A signal example of how Shakespeare raised prose material into 
glowing and luxuriant poetry, is afforded by the description in An- 
tony and Cleopatra (A. II. Sc. ii. 196-231), given by Enobarbus to 
Agrippa, of Cleopatra's sailing down the Cydnus to meet Antony, 
the circumstances of which, Shakespeare derived from North's 
Plutarch.* (See Commentary on Antony and Cleopatra, in this 
volume.) 



♦'"This version, called by Warton Shakespeare's 'storehouse of learned 
history,' was made by Sir Thomas North. The translation was made, not from 
the original Greek, but from a French version by Jaques Amyot, bishop of 



PROSE IN SHAKESPEARE^ S PLAYS. 95 

Superior as is Shakespeare's verse to that of all his dramatic 
contemporaries, and they all, with very few exceptions, wrote 
verse of great vitality,* his prose is not less superior to all English 
prose, produced in every department of literature down to, and 
many years subsequent to, his time. The prose of Bacon's Essays 
would probably first occur to many as bearing the palm of highest 
excellence reached at the time it was produced. But it is cramped 
and rugged in comparison with Shakespeare's best prose. Take, 
for example, the 2d Scene of the 5th Act of The Winter's Tale' 
11. 1-121. As dramatic prose, this has a corresponding excellence 
with the blank verse of the 2d Scene of the ist Act of The Tem- 
pest, beyond which dramatic blank verse has never gone. If 
Shakespeare did not write this prose in The Winter's Tale, Bacon 
certainly did not. 

'' Enter Autolycus and a Gentleman. 
Aut. Beseech you, sir, were you present at this relation? 
I Gent. I was by at the opening of the fardel ; heard the old 

Auxerre. It was first published in 1579, the dedication to Queen Elizabeth 
being dated Jan. 6, and his address to the Reader Jan. 24, 2d edition 1595 
Other editions appeared in 1603, 1612, 1631, 1656, and 1676. A selection 
from the Lives in North's Plutarch which illustrate Shakespeare's Plays, has 
been edited with notes, etc., by the Rev. Walter W. Skeat, London, 1875.'" 

* "What it was that happened to the English ear after that [the Eliza- 
bethan era] I know not; perhaps I may have abandoned my own too exclu- 
sively to their music and become insensible or intolerant to what succeeded; 
but for more than a hundred years the art of writing anything but the heroic 
couplet seems to have been lost, which couplet, I confess, it costs me almost 
an heroic effort to read; and when our verse ceased to clank this chain, it rose 
into lyrical movements of some force and freedom, but to me it seems never 
to have recovered the subtle and searching power and consonantal pith which 
It lost m that fatal eighteenth century, when our language itself was dethroned 
and levelled. The blank verse of Young and Cowper in the last century, or 
(with the exception of occasional passages) of Southey and Wordsworth in this, 
IS, to my mind, no more like that of the better Elizabethans than a turnpike 
road is like a bridle path, or a plantation like a forest." — From letter of 
Henry Taylor to Sir John He.schel, Aug. 26, 1862 ('* Correspondence of 
H. T., edited by Edward Dowden," pp. 243, 244). 



96 DISTINCTIVE USE OF VERSE AND 

shepherd deUver the manner how he found it : whereupon, after 
a httle amazedness, we were all commanded out of the chamber ; 
only this methought I heard the shepherd say, he found the child. 
Aut. I would most gladly know the issue of it. 

1 Gent. I make a broken delivery of the business ; but the 
changes I perceived in the king and Camillo were very notes of 
admiration : they seemed almost, with staring on one another, to 
tear the cases of their eyes ; there was speech in their dumbness, 
language in their very gesture ; they looked as they had heard of a 
world ransomed, or one destroyed : a notable passion of wonder 
appeared in them : but the wisest beholder, that knew no more 
but seeing, could not say if the importance were joy or sorrow; 
but in the extremity of the one it must needs be. 

Enter another Gentleman. 

Here comes a gentleman that haply knows more : The news, 
Rogero ? 

2 Gent. Nothing but bonfires : the oracle is fulfilled ; the king's 
daughter is found : such a deal of wonder is broken out within 
this hour, that ballad-makers cannot be able to express it. 

Enter a third Gentleman. 

Here comes the lady Paulina's steward ; he can deliver you more. 
How goes it now, sir? this news, which is called true, is so like an 
old tale, that the verity of it is in strong suspicion : has the king 
found his heir? 

3 Gent. Most true; if ever truth were pregnant by circum- 
stance; that which you hear you'll swear you see, there is such 
unity in the proofs. The mantle of queen Hermione's, her jewel 
about the neck of it, the letters of Antigonus found with it which 
they know to be his character, the majesty of the creature, in 
resemblance of the mother, the affection of nobleness, which 
nature shows above her breeding, and many other evidences, pro- 
claim her, with all certainty, to be the king's daughter. Did you 
see the meeting of the two kings ? 



PROSE IN SHAKESPEARE'S PL A YS. 97 

2 Gent. No. 

3 Gent. Then have you lost a sight, which was to be seen, 
cannot be spoken of. There might you have beheld one joy 
crown another, so and in such manner, that it seemed sorrow wept 
to take leave of them ; for their joy waded in tears. There was 
casting up of eyes, holding up of hands; with countenance of 
such distraction, that they were to be known by garment, not by 
favour. Our king, being ready to leap out of himself for joy of 
his found daughter, as if that joy were now become a loss, cries, 
' Oh, thy mother, thy mother ! ' then asks Bohemia forgiveness ; 
then embraces his son-in-law ; then again worries he his daughter, 
with clipping her ; now he thanks the old shepherd, which stands 
by, like a weather-bitten conduit of many kings' reigns. I never 
heard of such another encounter, which lames report to follow it, 
and undoes description to do it. 

2 Gejit. What, 'pray you, became of Antigonus, that carried 
hence the child? 

3 Gent. Like an old tale still ; which will have matter to re- 
hearse, though credit be asleep, and not an ear open. He was 
torn to pieces with a bear : this avouches the shepherd's son ; who 
has not only his innocence (which seems much) to justify him, 
but a handkerchief and rings of his that Paulina knows. 

I Gent. What became of his bark, and his followers ? 

3 Gent. Wracked the same instant of their master's death, and 
in the view of the shepherd : so that all the instruments which 
aided to expose the child, were even then lost, when it was found. 
But, oh the noble combat that 'twixt joy and sorrow was fought in 
Paulina ! She had one eye decHned for the loss of her husband, 
another elevated that the oracle was fulfilled : she Hfted the prin- 
cess from the earth, and so locks her in embracing, as if she would 
pin her to her heart, that she might no more be in danger of 
loosing. 

I Ge7it. The dignity of this act was worth the audience of 
kings and princes ; for by such was it acted. 

3 Gent. One of the prettiest touches of all, and that which 



98 DISTINCTIVE USE OF VERSE AND PROSE. 

angled for mine eyes (caught the water, though not the fish), was, 
when at the relation of the queen's death, with the manner how 
she came to it, (bravely confessed, and lamented by the king,) 
how attentiveness wounded his daughter; till, from one sign of 
dolour to another, she did, with an ' alas ! ' I would fain say, 
bleed tears ; for, I am sure, my heart wept blood. Who was most 
marble there changed colour : some swooned, all sorrowed : if all 
the world could have seen 't, the woe had been universal. 

1 Gent. Are they returned to the court? 

3 Gent. No : the princess hearing of her mother's statue, which 
is in the keeping of Paulina, — a piece many years in doing, and 
now newly performed by that rare Italian master, JuHo Romano ; 
who, had he himself eternity, and could put breath into his work, 
would beguile nature of her custom, so perfectly he is her ape : 
he so near to Hermione hath done Hermione that they say one 
would speak to her and stand in hope of answer : thither, with 
all greediness of affection, are they gone ; and there they intend 
to sup. 

2 Gent. I thought she had some great matter there in hand ; 
for she hath privately, twice or thrice a day, ever since the death 
of Hermione, visited that removed house. Shall v/e thither, and 
with our company piece the rejoicing? 

I Gent. Who would be thence that has the benefit of access? 
every wink of an eye, some new grace will be born : our absence 
makes us unthrifty to our knowledge. Let's along. 

\_Exeunt Gentlemen." 



LATIN AND ANGLO-SAXON ELEMENTS. 99 



T 



THE LATIN AND THE ANGLO-SAXON ELE- 
MENTS OF SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLISH, AND 
THE MONOSYLLABIC VOCABULARY, 

IN THEIR RELATIONS TO THE INTELLECTUAL, THE EMO- 
TIONAL, AND THE DRAMATIC. 

^HE peculiar domains of the Latin and the Anglo-Saxon ele- 
_ ments of the English language have been sufficiently defined 
by numerous writers well qualified for the task. Thomas De 
Quincey has distinguished these domains, in his Essay on Words- 
worth's Poetry, with his characteristic sagacity and rare faculty of 
discrimination: "The gamut of ideas," he says, "needs a corre- 
sponding gamut of expressions ; the scale of the thinking, which 
ranges through every key, exacts, for the artist, an unUmited com- 
mand over the entire scale of the instrument which he employs. 
Never, in fact, was there a more erroneous direction than that 
given by a modern rector of the Glasgow University to the 
students, — viz., that they should cultivate the Saxon part of our 
language, at the cost of the Latin part. Nonsense ! Both are 
indispensable ; and, speaking generally without stopping to distin- 
guish as to subjects, both are equaHy indispensable. Pathos, in 
situations which are homely, or at all connected with domestic 
affections, naturally moves by Saxon words. Lyrical emotion of 
every kind, which (to merit the name of lyrical) must be in the 
state of flux and reflux, or, generally, of agitation, also requires the 
Saxon element of our language. And why? Because the Saxon 
is the aboriginal element ; the basis, and not the superstructure ; 
consequently, it com.prehends all the ideas which are natural to 
the heart of man, and to the elementary situations of life. And, 



lOO LATIN AND ANGLO-SAXON ELEMENTS. 

although the Latin often furnishes us with duphcates of these 
ideas, yet the Saxon or monosyllabic part has the advantage of 
precedency in our use and knowledge ; for it is the language of 
the nursery, whether for rich or poor, in which great philological 
academy, no toleration is given to words in ' osity ' or ' ation.^ 
There is, therefore, a great advantage, as regards the consecration 
to our feelings, settled, by usage and custom, upon the Saxon 
strands, in the mixed yarn of our native tongue. And, universally, 
this may be remarked — that, whenever the passion of a poem is 
of that sort, which uses, presumes, or postulates the ideas, without 
seeking to extend them, Saxon will be the ' cocoon ' (to speak by 
the language applied to silkworms), which the poem spins for 
itself. But, on the other hand, when the motion of the feeling is 
by and through the ideas, where (as in religious or meditative 
poetry — Young's, for instance, or Cowper's) the pathos creeps 
and kindles underneath the very tissues of the thinking, there the 
Latin will predominate ; and so much so, that, whilst the flesh, the 
blood, and the muscle, will be often almost exclusively Latin, the 
articulations only, or hinges of connections, will be Anglo-Saxon." 
So unperverted were Shakespeare's instincts, so almost infallible, 
in the use of words, that the general vocabulary of a Play, or 
even the special vocabulary of a speech, is a quite reliable indica- 
tion of the key in which it is pitched. Troilus and Cressida, for 
example, is the most intellectual of Shakespeare's Plays ; — the 
wisdom with which it preeminently abounds, may be character- 
ized as the wisdom of the intellect,* rather than the wisdom of the 
heart ; and its intellectual character might be almost guessed by 



* Dryden, who " corrected " the Troilus and Cressida, says of it in his 
Preface, "The Tragedy which I have undertaken to correct, was, in all proba- 
bility, one of his [Shakespeare's] first endeavors on the stage " ! Further on 
he says it was composed "in the Apprenticeship of his writing." On which 
Dr. John K. Ingram remarks, " How any person of moderate discernment 
could suppose that play, so full of knowledge of the world and all the fruits of 
ripe reflection, to have been the work of a very young man, I confess, passes 
my comprehension." 



Latin and anglo-saxon elements. ioi 

its Latin vocabulary alone. I have not taken the pains to esti- 
mate the percentage of its Latin vocabulary over that of other 
plays ; but every reader of the Play must notice that this vocabu- 
lary is signally more extensive than in a play with so large an ele- 
ment of homely pathos, for example, as is in King Lear. 

The Anglo-Saxon element of the English language is largely 
monosyllabic ; and the part which monosyllabic words play in 
Shakespeare's diction, is one that it is important to take account 
of, in a study of his language-shaping as organically connected 
with thought and feeling. 

(It will be found that deep feehng of every kind expresses itself 
through, and, indeed, attracts to itself, the monosyllabic words of 
the language ; not only because such words are, for the most part, 
Anglo-Saxon, and therefore more consecrated to feeling than to 
thought, but because the staccato effect which can be secured 
through them rather than through dissyllabic and trisyllabic words, 
subserves well the natural movement of impassioned speech. Take, 
for example, this passage from the Song of Deborah and Barak, 
5th chapter of Judges, 27th verse: "At her feet he bowed, he 
fell, he lay down : at her feet he bowed, he fell : where he bowed, 
there he fell down dead." 

The three following lines from Juliet's speech to the Friar 
(Romeo and Juliet, IV. i. 84-86), afford a good example of 
monosyllabic effect; and the extra end-syllable of the the third 
line, adds to the effect : 

*' Or bid me go into a new-made grave, 
And hide me with a dead man in his shroud ; 
Things that to hear them told, have made me tremble ; " 

And the following speeches : 

'■'■Montague. . . . Hold me not, let me go. 
Lady M. Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe." 

— R. and J. I. i. 72, 'j-}^. 

When Juliet entreats to delay her marriage with Paris, her 
mother repHes : 



I02 LATIN AND ANGLO-SAXON ELEMENTS. 

" Talk not to me, for Til not speak a word : 
Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee." 

— A. III. Sc. V. 204, 205. 

In the speech of Martha to Jesus, John xi. 21, 22, "Lord, if 
thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know, 
that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it 
thee," how much the feeling of the speaker is subserved by the 
monosyllabic words in which the speech is uttered ! 

When Una, in the Fairie Queene, meets with Archimago, in the 
disguise of the Red-Cross Knight, whom to find, she has wandered 
many a wood, and measured many a vale, weeping she addresses 
him, thinking him to be indeed her own true knight : 

" Ah, my long lacked Lord, 
Where have ye bene thus long out of my sight ? 
Much feared I to have bene quite abhord, 
Or ought have done, that ye displeasen might, 
That should as death unto my dear heart light : 
For since mine eie your joyous sight did mis, 
My chearefull day is turnd to cloudless night, 
And eke my night, of death the shadow is ; 
But welcome now, my light, and shining lamp of blis ! " 

76 words, of which 72 are Saxon. The Saxon vocabularly alone, 
as Saxon, subserves the feeling of the speaker ; but how much in 
addition thereto the utterance of the feeling is subserved by the 
monosyllabic words ! Take especially the 2d verse of the stanza ; 

"Where have ye bene thus long out of my sight?" 

Note the staccato effect of the monosyllabic words, " So downe he 
fell," which are repeated four times in the 54th Stanza, of Canto 
XL Book I of the Faerie Queene. The stanza occurs in the 
description of the slaying of the Dragon by the Red-Cross Knight : 

" So dowiie he fell, and forth his life did breath. 
That vanisht into smoke and cloudes swift ; 
So donme he fell, that th' earth him underneath 



LATIN AND ANGLO-SAXON ELEMENTS. 103 

Did grone, as feeble so great load to lift ; 
So downe he fell, as an huge rocky clift. 
Whose false foundacion waves have washt away, 
With dreadfull poyse is from the mayneland rift, 
And rolling downe great Neptune doth dismay : 
So downe he fell, and like an heaped mountain lay^ 

The first verse is all monosyllabic. The final monosyllabic 
word " lay," after the dissyllabic words " heaped mountain," is 
effective. So in Paradise Lost, Book X. vv. 541, 542 : 

" down their arms, 
Down fell both spear and shield ; down they as fast ; " 

Note the prayerful tone imparted to the 2d and 3d Stanzas of 
the Introductory Poem to Tennyson's "In Memoriam," by the 
monosyllabic words of which, with one exception, they are entirely 
composed. The exception is the word ' madest,' which is used 
three times ; and even this word is monosyllabic without the 
inflection. But being here a dissyllable, and being also the key 
word of the stanza, it is isolated into prominence. It also ends 
the stanza, and this fact gives it additional prominence : 

** Thine are these orbs of light and shade ; 
Thou madest Life in man and brute ; 
Thou madest Death ; and lo, thy foot 
Is on the skull which thou hast made. 

Thou wilt not leave us in the dust ; 

Thou madest man, he knows not why; 

He thinks he was not made to die ; 
And thou hast made him : thou art just." 

The same prayerful tone could not have been secured through 
Latin dissyllabic words. In the two stanzas there are but 3 words, 
not Anglo-Saxon in origin, "orbs," "brute," "just" — 3 words out 
of 61. 

No living poet has woven his song to such an extent as Ten- 
nyson has done, out of the Saxon vocabulary. " In Memoriam " 



104 LATIN AND ANGLO-SAXON ELEMENTS. 

exhibits, perhaps, a greater percentage of Saxon words than any 
other poem of the same extent, in the hterature, since the days 
of Chaucer ; and this is largely owing to the genuine, unaffected 
feeling in which the subtlest conceptions are steeped. The 103d 
section, beginning " On that last night before we went From out 
the doors where I was bred," may be cited as an example of per- 
fect poetic diction, simple, and almost as direct and free from 
inversion and involution, as the most unadorned and straightfor- 
ward prose. Of the 381 words which it contains, 342 are Saxon, 
and but 39 of Latin, Greek, or other origin; 322 are monosyllabic; 
the 1 1 th stanza is purely monosyllabic with the exception of the 
Latin word, " silence.") 

King Lear, the homhest in its pathos, of all the Plays of Shake- 
speare, abounds in striking examples of staccato effect, secured 
through monosyllables : 

" Go tell the duke and's wife Fid speak with them, 
Now, presently : bid them come forth and hear me, 
Or at their chamber-door I'll beat the drum 
Till it cry sleep to death." — A. II. So. iv. 112-115. 

" If you do love old men, if your sweet sway 
Allow obedience, if yourselves are old, 
Make it your cause ; send down, and take my part ! " 

" O sides, you are too tough ; 
Will you yet hold? How came my man in the stocks? " 

— A. II. Sc. iv. 187-189; 194, 195. 

" You see me here, you gods, a poor old man, 
As full of grief as age ; " . . . — A. II. Sc. iv. 269, 270. 

" I will have such revenges on you both 
That all the world shall — I will do such things — 
What they are, yet I know not, but they shall be 
The terrors of the earth. You think I'll weep ; 
No ; I'll not weep : . . . . 

O fool, I shall go mad ! " — A. II. Sc. iv. 274-280 ; 283. 

" Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks ! rage ! blow ! " — A. III. Sc. ii. i. 



LATIN AND ANGLO-SAXON ELEMENTS. 105 

" My wits begin to turn. 
Come on, my boy : how dost, my boy ? art cold ? " 

" Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart 
That's sorry yet for thee." — A. III. Sc. ii. 66, 67 ; 72, ^t^. 

" No, I will weep no more. In such a night 
To shut me out ! Pour on ; I will endure. 
In such a night as this ! " . . . 

*' Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave you all, — 
O, that way madness lies ; but let me shun that ; 
No more of that." — A. III. Sc. iv. 17-19; 20-22. 

*' Edg. What will hap more to-night, safe ^scape the king ! 
Lurk, Lurk." — A. III. Sc. vi. 113, 114. 

''Corn. . . . Upon these eyes of thine ril set my foot. 
Glou. He that will think to live till he be old. 
Give me some help !" — A. III. Sc. vii. 67-69. 

" Alb. You are not worth the dust which the rude wind 
Blows in your face." — A. IV. Sc. ii. 30, 31. 

" Lear. Ha ! Goneril, with a white beard ! They flattered me 
like a dog, and told me I had white hairs in my beard ere the 
black ones were there. To say ^ ay ' and ' no ' to every thing that 
I said ! * Ay ' and ' no ' too was no good divinity. When the 
rain came to wet me once and the wind to make me chatter ; 
when the thunder would not peace at my bidding ; there I found 
'em, there I smelt 'em out. Go to, they are not men o' their 
words : they told me I was every thing ; 'tis a lie, I am not ague- 
proof." — A. IV. Sc. vi. 96-104. 

" Lear. O, ho, are you there with me ? No eyes in your head, 
nor no money in your purse ? Your eyes are in a heavy case, your 
purse in a Hght : yet you see how this world goes." — A. IV. Sc. vi. 
143-146. 

" Thou know^st, the first time that we smell the air, 
We wawl and cry. I will preach to thee : mark. 



I06 LATIN AND ANGLO-SAXON ELEMENTS. 

When we are born, we cry that we are come 

To this great stage of fools. This's a good block. 

It were a delicate stratagem, to shoe 

A troop of horse with felt : I'll put't in proof; 

And when I have stolen upon these sons-in-law, 

Then, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!" — A. IV. Sc. vi. 178-186. 

" Lear. You do me wrong to take me out o' the grave : 
Thou art a soul in bliss ; but I am bound 
Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears 
Do scald like molten lead." 

" Cor. Sir, do you know me? " 

" Lear. You are a spirit, I know. When did you die?" 

" Cor. Still, still, far wide!" — A. IV. Sc. vii. 45-50. 

*' Lear. I know not what to say. 
I will not swear these are my hands : let's see ; 
I feel this pin prick." — A. IV. Sc. vii. 54-56. 

" Lear. No, no, no, no ! Come, let's away to prison : 
We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage : 
When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down 
And ask of thee forgiveness : so we'll live, 
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh 
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues 
Talk of court news ; and we'll talk with them too, 
Who loses and who wins, who's in, who's out ; 
And take upon us the mystery of things. 
As if we were God's spies : and we'll wear out. 
In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones 
That ebb and flow by the moon." — A. V. Sc. iii. 8-19. 

** Wipe thine eyes; 
The good-years shall devour them, flesh and fell, 
Ere they shall make us weep : we'll see 'em starve first. 
Come." — A. V. Sc. iii. 23-26. 

" Lear. Howl, howl, howl, howl ! O, you are men of stones 
Had I your tongues and eyes, I'ld use them so 



LATIN AND ANGLO-SAXON ELEMENTS. 107 

That heaven's vault should crack. She's gone forever! 
I know when one is dead and when one lives ; 
She's dead as earth. Lend me a looking-glass ; 
If that her breath will mist or stain the stone, 
Why, then she lives." — A. V. Sc. iii. 258-264. 

•' Lear. And my poor fool is hang'd ! No, no, no life ! 
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, 
And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more, 
Never, never, never, never, never ! 
Pray you, undo this button : thank you, sir. 
Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips, 
Look there, look there ! " \_Dies. 

— A. V. Sc. iii. 306-312. 

No other than a monosyllabic vocabulary, and that vocabulary, 
too, the Saxon vocabulary of every-day life, would serve so effec- 
tually to express the homely pathos involved in the two last 
speeches. 

Observe the effect secured by the monosyllabic words, in the 
following passage from King John, A. IIL Sc. iii. They serve 
to convey the impression of a close confidence. The King is 
speaking to Hubert and hesitates to declare openly his wish to 
have the little prince Arthur put out of the way. To the speech 
of Hubert, " I am much bounden to your majesty," the King 
repHes : 

" Good friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet. 
But thou shalt have ; and creep time ne'er so slow, 
Yet it shall come for me to do thee good. 
I had a thing to say, but let it go." 

The entire speech, of which these are the opening lines, is a 
wonder of metrical movement. The sense is kept suspended 
through twenty-one verses, though the mind and ear are promised 
here and there, a descent which is nevertheless withheld, till we 
come to the lines, " I would into thy bosom pour my thoughts : 
But, ah, I will not ! yet I love thee well ; And, by my troth, I think 
thou lov'st me well." 



I08 LATIN AND ANGLO-SAXON ELEMENTS. 

Observe how the abruptness of strong feeling is subserved by 
the monosyllabic words in the following passage from the same 
play, A. IV. Sc. iii. Salisbury says to the Bastard, 

" Stand by, or I shall gall you, Faulconbridge." 

The Bastard replies in great anger, 

" Thou wert better gall the devil, Salisbury : 
If thou but frown on me or stir thy foot, 
Or teach thy hasty spleen to do me shame, 
I'll strike thee dead. Put up thy sword betime ; 
Or ril so maul you and your toasting-iron. 
That you shall think the devil is come from hell." 

And a little further on, in the same Scene, when the Bastard ex- 
presses to Hubert his suspicions that he (Hubert) has killed the 
young Prince, note the staccato effect of the monosyllabic words 
of which some of the clauses are entirely composed. 

The Bastard says : 

" Here's a good world ! Knew you of this fair work? 
Beyond the infinite and boundless reach 
Of mercy, if thou didst this deed of death. 
Art thou damn'd, Hubert." 

The effect of the staccato movement of the clause, "if thou 
didst this deed of death," is enforced by the lengthened move- 
ment of what immediately precedes : 

" Beyond the infinite and boundless reach of mercy, 
If thou didst this deed of death, 
Art thou damn'd, Hubert. 

Hub. Do but hear me, sir. 

Bast. Ha ! I'll tell thee what ; 
Thou'rt damn'd as black, — nay, nothing is so black ; 
Thou art more deep damn'd than Prince Lucifer : 
There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell 
As thou shalt be, if thoii didst kill this child. '*'* 



LATIN AND ANGLO-SAXON ELEMENTS. 



09 



Note the effect of the monosyllabic words, in the oft-repeated 
" I'll have my bond," in Shylock's speech to Antonio (Merchant 
of Venice, A. III. Sc. iii.) ; they suggest, as Charles and Mary 
Cowden Clarke say, in their " Shakespeare Key," the bark of the 
' dog ' he taunts Antonio with having called him : 

" I HI have 7ny bond-, speak not against my bond : 
I have sworn an oath that / will have ifiy bond. 
Thou cairdst me dog before thou hadst a cause ; 
But, since I am a dog, beware my fangs. . . . 

Afitonio. I pray thee hear me speak. 

Shy lock. I HI have my bo?id ; I will not hear thee speak: 
/'// have my bond; and therefore speak no more. . . . 
ril have no speaking: I will have my bond.'''' 

In the following speech of Constance (King John, A. III. Sc. 
iv.), the iteration of the monosyllabic words, " I am not mad," and 
the additional monosyllabic vocabulary, subserve well the expres- 
sion of her passionate grief: 

" Pand. Lady, you utter madness, and not sorrow. 

Const. Thou art not holy to belie me so ; 
I am not mad. This hair I tear is mine ; 
My name is Constance ; I was Geffrey's wife ; 
Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost : 
I am not mad, — I would to heaven, I were ! 
For then, 'tis like I should forget myself: 
O, if I could, what grief should I forget ! — 
Preach some philosophy to make me mad, 
And thou shalt be canonized, cardinal ; 
For, being not mad, but sensible of grief. 
My reasonable part produces reason 
How I may be deliver'd of these woes, 
And teaches me to kill or hang myself: 
If I were mad, I should forget my son ; 
Or madly think a babe of clouts were he. 
I am not mad, too well, too well I feel 
The different plague of each calamity. 



no LATIN AND ANGLO-SAXON ELEMENTS. 

It will also be found that tlie more violent feelings of anger, hate, 
detestation, scorn, etc., in addition to their attracting to themselves 
the monosyllabic words of the language, express themselves on 
the abrupt vowels of words ; while the gentler feelings of love or 
admiration or of the beautiful, express themselves on the prolong- 
able vowels. 

Examples of special effect secured by emphasis on abrupt 
vowels, abound throughout the Tragedies and Histories. Take for 
example the following speeches of Gloster, in Richard III. A. I. 
Sc. iii. 103 et seq., in which he replies to Elizabeth, queen to 
Edward IV., and to Queen Margaret, widow of Henry VI. : 

" Queen Eliz. My Lord of Gloster, I have too long borne 
Your blunt upbraidings and your bitter scofts ; 
By heaven I will acquaint his majesty 
Of those gross taunts that oft I have endurM. . . . 

Enter Queen Margaret, beJiind, where she remains. 

Small joy have I in being England's queen. 

Queen Marg. And lessened be that small, God, I beseech him ! 
Thy honor, state, and seat is due to me. 

Gloster (in anger^ . Wh^t ! threat you me with t<?lling of the King ? 
T^ll him, and spare not : look, what I have said 
I will avouch in pr/s^nce of the King ; . . . 

Queen Marg. Out, devil ! I remember them too well. 
Thou kiirdst my husband Henry in the Tower, 
And Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury. 

Gloster. Ere you were queen, ay, or your husband King, 
I was a p«ck-horse in his great affairs : . . . 
To royalize h/'s blood I spent mine own. 

Queen Marg. Ay, and much better blood than his or thine. 

Gloster. In all which time, you and your husband Grey, 
Were factious for the house of Lancaster ; — 
And, Rivers, so were you. — Was not your husband 
In Margaret's battle at Saint Alban's slain? 
Let me put in your minds, if you forget, 
V/hat you have been ere this, and what you are ; 
Withal, what I have been, and what I am." 



LATIN AND ANGLO-SAXON ELEMENTS. \\\ 

The italicized vowels in Gloster's speeches should be uttered 
with a strongly percussive force. An extra effect is secured 
through the words "telling" and "Tell," by carrying the voice 
(after uttering the abrupt vowel, ^, with a percussive force) through 
a wide upward interval on /in " telHng," and a wide downward in- 
terval on /in " Tell " — the latter ha\qng a haughtily defiant effect. 
The staccato effect secured through the monosyllabic words in the 
three last lines, " Let me put in your minds," etc., subserves well 
the highly wrought feelings of the speaker. 

Good examples occur throughout the quarrel scene between 
Brutus and Cassius, in Julius Caesar, A. IV. Sc. iii. 



12 ROMEO AND JULIET. 



ROMEO AND JULIET. 



IN Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare's first tragedy, we have what 
has been well called the lyric melody of passion. In the poet's 
growth, this lyric melody of passion is gradually developed into 
what Dowden calls 'the orchestral symphony of emotion which 
envelops us when we approach King Lear.' 

There is a sentence in King Lear which might serve as a motto 
to the Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. The King of France says 
to Burgundy, after Cordelia has been cast off by her father : 

" My lord of Burgundy, 
What say you to the lady? Love's not love 
When it is mingled with regards that stand 
Aloof from the entire point." — A. I. Sc. i. 242. 

That is. Love's not love when it is mingled with considerations 
that stand aloof from the main point of affection. True love 
ignores all such considerations. Or a portion of the 11 6th Sonnet 
would serve as an appropriate motto : 

" Let me not to the marriage of true minds 
Admit impediments. Love . . . 
... is an ever-fixed mark, 

That looks on tempests and is never shaken ; 

******** 

Love's not Time's fool, tho' rosy lips and cheeks 
Within his bending sickle's compass come ; 
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 
But bears it out even to the edge of doom." 

In Romeo and Juliet, love is represented as entirely divorced 
from all considerations which stand aloof from the entire point — 



ROMEO AND JULIET. II3 

from the main point of affection. And there is not in the play 
any vicarious condemnation of such divorcement; I mean by 
vicarious condemnation, that which is uttered by a character in 
the place of the poet himself. There is a moderation enjoined 
upon Romeo by Friar Laurence ; but all that he says is said in 
propria persona, and not vicariously. Love becomes the agency 
for developing a pair of young and exquisitely organized human 
beings into heroic manhood and heroic womanhood. And tragic 
as are, or may be regarded, the consequences of their love, their 
devotion unto death not only completes their lives, but effects a 
reconcilement of the bitterly hostile houses which they represent. 
As the Prologue expresses it, their " misadventured piteous over- 
throws do with their death bury their parents' strife, which but 
their children's end nought could remove." 

This, Shakespeare's first tragedy, it is all important to regard 
from the right standpoint, as it can be taken as illustrative of the 
poet's characteristic mode of presenting strong passion, — a mode 
which may best be called Shakespearian. In Ben Jonson's Come- 
dies, his characters are often personifications rather than personali- 
ties — personifications of autocratic moods or humors. He has 
been called a dramatic Dickens. Again, we see in other drama- 
tists, a predetermination to elucidate the effects of some mastering 
passion, or of some social principle. In the case of Shakespeare 
the critic is likely to go astray, if he see such predeterminations ; 
is likely to ascribe an undue place, in his creative work, to the 
conscious understanding, and to moral verdicts on the part of 
the poet. I cannot but think that critics have gone more astray 
in this respect, in their treatment of Romeo and JuHet, sim- 
ple as is the melody of the passion, than in the treatment of 
almost any other play. They have, with but few exceptions, 
attributed to Shakespeare the predetermination in this play, of ex- 
hibiting the bad, the fatal consequences of violent, unrestrained 
passion : and the importance of moderation — of observing the 
golden mean between too much and too little ; and in accordance 
with this view, they have regarded Friar Laurence as the poet's 



114 ROMEO AND JULIET. 

own spokesman, put into the play for the special purpose of vica- 
riously giving voice to the moderate and the prudential. Such a 
mode of proceeding may be necessary to dramatists of an inferior 
order, whose work moves under the condition of a notion of some 
kind. But Shakespeare's plays, none of them, move under such 
condition. He chose the subject of Romeo and Juliet for its 
passionate capabilities ; he is the artistic physiologist of human 
passions. And by artistic physiologist I mean, that he treats the 
passions under the condition of the moral constitution of things, 
but not as a moralist. 

Shakespeare is always especially happy in the opening scenes of 
his Plays. They generally strike the keynote of the whole dramatic 
action. Romeo and Juliet is no exception to this. Furthermore, 
the opening scene is, of itself, a sufficient refutation of much of the 
commentary on the play, which ascribes, as we shall see further on, 
the misadventured piteous overthrows of the two lovers, to subject- 
ive causes — to causes existing within themselves — to the immod- 
erateness, the rashness, the impetuosity, of their loves, rather than 
to objective causes — to the ancient grudge between the " two 
households, both alike in dignity," which, in the words of the 
Prologue, "break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil 
hands unclean." 

If the misadventured piteous overthrows of the two lovers were 
primarily due to subjective causes, and the mutual hatred of their 
families were only a secondary cause, the poet would hardly have 
opened the play with the angry contention in the streets, between 
the servants of the households, which has to be suppressed by the 
Prince of Verona, the representative of the state. When the fight 
is at its hottest, — 

'* Enter old Capulet, in his gown ; and Lady Capulet. 

Cap. What noise is this ? Give me my long sword, ho ! 
La. Cap. A crutch, a crutch ! Why call you for a sword ? 
Cap. My sword, I say ! Old Montague is come, 
And flourishes his blade in spite of me. 



ROMEO AND JULIET. II5 

Enter old Montague and Lady Montague. 

Mon. Thou villain Capulet ! Hold me not, let me go. 
Lm. Mon. Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe. 

Enter Prince, with his train. 

Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace, 
Profaneis of this neighbour-stained steel, — 
Will they not hear? — what, ho ! you men, you beasts, 
That quench the fire of your pernicious rage 
With purple fountains issuing from your veins, 
On pain of torture, from those bloody hands 
Throw your mistemper'd weapons to the ground. 
And hear the sentence of your moved prince. 
Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word, 
By thee, old Capulet, and Montague, 
Have thrice disturbed the quiet of our streets, 
And made Verona's ancient citizens 
Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments. 
To wield old partisans, in hands as old, 
Canker'd with peace, to part your canker'd hate ; 
If ever you disturb our streets again, 
Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace. 
For this time, all the rest depart away : 
You, Capulet, shall go along with me ; 
And, Montague, come you this afternoon, 
To know our farther pleasure in this case, 
To old Free-town, our common judgment place. 
Once more, on pain of death, all men depart." 

If the commentary on the play is correct, which ascribes the 
sorrows of the two lovers to their own characters (and it consti- 
tutes by far the largest portion of that commentary), then this 
opening scene is not in Shakespeare's manner ; and even if judged 
by an absolute standard, it is artistically faulty — the most artisti- 
cally faulty of all the opening scenes of his Plays. But, as I 
understand the play, Shakespeare, in this opening scene, strikes the 
keynote of the whole dramatic action. — which dramatic action is 
due entirely to the outward circumstances with which the lovers 



il6 ROMEO AND JULIET. 

are to be brought into a fatal conflict — and strikes it loudly; 
emphasizes the intensity of the hatred between the Capulets and 
the Montagues — a hatred which interferes with public peace and 
public security, and demands the interposition of the highest 
authority of the commonwealth. 

In this state of things, the two lovers are placed, the one a 
Montague and the other a Capulet ; and their mutual love is of 
that completely absorbing character that it sets at defiance all 
outward considerations and obstacles which oppose its course — 
a course of true love which, it can at once be seen, cdxniot run 
smooth, but will be kept in violent, boiling agitation until it ends 
in the repose of the grave. 

This, then, is the dramatic situation : two lovers, whose souls 
are completely absorbed in each other, are brought in conflict with 
a hatred which has existed between their two families for many 
generations, and which time has not softened, but rather intensi- 
fied. For, at the period when the play opens, the ancient grudge 
of the " two households, both alike in dignity," is dramatically pre- 
sented to us as broken out into new mutiny, and things are at 
their worst. 

Romeo is first presented to us in love with an obdurate fair, 
named Rosaline, who will give no ear to the young man's suit ; 
and the next important points to be considered are, the character 
and the artistic significance of this first love. There is danger of 
an essential misunderstanding of it — a misunderstanding which 
has been encouraged by some of the leading critics of the play — 
by most of the leading critics of the play, and which Mrs. Jame- 
son, in her "Characteristics of Shakespeare's Women," has most 
strongly set forth. She calls Romeo's first love a " visionary pas- 
sion"; represents him as "the thrall of a dreaming, fanciful 
passion," after the style of the fantastic school of gallantry. 

Romeo's first love being so understood, its introduction into 
the play is wholly superfluous — it is merely an intrusion, an ex- 
crescence ; and more than that : Romeo, in being first introduced 
as a merely conventional lover, with a visiofiary passion, after the 



ROMEO AND JULIET. II7 

Style of the fantastic school of gallantry, would be too much low- 
ered in our estimation, would forfeit too much our respect for 
him, to be, afterwards, with Juliet, the representative of the power 
and the triumph ot love, which it is certainly the purpose of the 
play poetically to idealize. 

Ulrici, in his " Shakespeare's Dramatic Art," after setting forth 
his view of the destnictive excess of the passion of the lovers, 
Romeo and Juliet, and after representing Romeo as carried away, 
as it were, by some malignant and irresistible impulse, adds : " In 
order to throw out this caprice in a still stronger light, Shakespeare 
introduces him to us in a dreamy passion for Rosaline." Which 
is about equivalent to saying that Shakespeare does his extreme 
best to render Romeo unworthy of our respect. According to 
Ulrici, he is a better subject for comedy than for a deep tragedy. 

Kreyzig, in his *' Vorlesungen uber Shakespeare," says: "We 
make the acquaintance of Romeo at the critical period of that not 
dangerous sickness to which youth is hable." He calls it "that 
love lying in the eyes of early and just blooming manhood, that 
humorsome, whimsical 'love in idleness,' that first, bewildered, 
stammering interview of the heart with the scarcely awakened 
nature. Strangely enough," he says, " objections have been 
made to this ^superfluous complication,' as if down to this day, 
every Romeo had not to sigh for some full-blown Junonian Rosa- 
line, nay, for half a dozen Rosalines, more or less, before his 
eyes open upon his Juliet." That's true enough. But this fact 
doesn't answer the objections which, strangely enough, he says, 
have been made to this superfluous complication. J The objection 
stills holds good when all that is said against it is, that it's a 
common thing for a young man to have an early love before he 
finds his Juliet.' Well, it's a common thing for a child to have 
the measles, or the mumps ; but an artist would not introduce a 
child into a play and represent it as having the measles, or the 
mumps, unless he had some artistic purpose in so doing. Let us 
look for the " proof of design and self-supporting arrangement " 
which are everywhere found in Shakespeare. 



Il8 ROMEO AND JULIET. 

Shakespeare never adopts anything from his original without ^ 
making it organic — that is, an element of the action of his drama, J 
What he adopts may be in the original story an excrescence ; but 
it becomes in the play a part of its organic vitality. This is as 
true of Romeo's first love as of any adoption in any of the Plays. 
He found it in the old story, but he did not retain it merely 
because it was there. That can be said with perfect assurance. 
If it had not suited his purpose, he could easily, and would, have 
eliminated it. His power of rejecting was as great as his power 
of appropriating. He did both with equal judgment and skill. 
And he was quick to detect the dramatic capabiHty of this first 
love when he met with it in the old story. 

We find, on referring to the original of Romeo and Juliet, 
namely, the old English poem, by Arthur Brooke, entitled " The 
Tragicall Historye of Romeus and luliet," pubhshed in 1562, that 
Shakespeare has modified, in two important particulars, what 
Brooke says of this first love ; and we can see by this modifica- 
tion, his dramatic purpose. [For the history of the old story, its 
various forms, etc., see Mr. P. A. Daniel's Introduction to his edi- 
tion of Romeus and luliet, by Arthur Brooke, and " Rhomeo and 
lulietta," by WiUiam Painter, published by the New Shakspere 
Society, in 1875. That Brooke's Poem was Shakespeare's orig- 
inal, is conclusively shown by the Editor.] 

In Brooke's poem, Romeo, after repeated failures to make any 
impression upon the heart of the fair maid he loves, is repre- 
sented as thinking to leave Verona and to try if chatige of place 
might change away his ill-bestowed love. He reflects : 

" Perhaps mine eye once banished by absence from her sight, 
This fire of mine, that by her pleasant eyes is fed, 
Shall little and little wear away, and quite at last be dead." 

vv. 86-88. 

Here Romeo, although he is represented as loving deeply, has 
not so entirely surrendered his individuaUty, but that he retains 
considerable power of asserting his selfhood. There's a portion 



ROMEO AND JULIET. II9 

of himself, a pretty big portion, we must suppose, belonging to 
himself. The absorption of his individuality in one of the oppo- 
site sex is not complete. Again, when his friend who, in the play 
is called Benvolio (he is nameless in the poem, as is also the ob- 
durate fair one), when his friend advises him to turn his eyes in 
other directions, and endeavor to seek out " some one of beauty, 
favor, shape, and lovely carriage," upon whom to bestow his 
heart, and thus forget his present love, 

" The young man's listening ears received the wholesome sound, 
And Reason's truth yplanted so, within his head had ground ; 
That now with healthy cool y tempered is the heat, 
And peacemeal wears away the grief, that erst his heart did fret / 

vv. 141-144- 

and he plights to his friend a solemn oath that, at every feast t)y 
day, and banquet by night, at church, at games in open street, 
and everywhere he would resort where ladies were accustomed to 
assemble. All this is strong and conclusive evidence that, as a 
lover, he was not so very far gone. The poem then goes on to 
relate how Romeo went to a banquet given by the Capulets, and 
there fell in love with Juliet, just as in the play. It will be ob- 
served, in the first place, how the play follows the poem in a 
general way, and in what important particulars it departs from 
it ; and those departures bear testimony to the poet's dramatic 
purpose. 

Romeo in the play presents a strong contrast, as the lover of 
RosaUne, to the Romeo of Brooke's poem. In the play his ab- 
sorption is so complete that he has no power to assert, in the 
least, his selfhood, as he does in the poem. The gentleness of 
his nature, the dramatist has also emphasized. He is presented 
in strong contrast with the fiery Tybalt, and with the general dis- 
cordant spirit around him. Tieck says, " in good fortune, as in 
bad, he is violent and rough." But he says this in the service of 
his theory. The play certainly does not so represent him. 

Romeo's first love is represented in A. I. Sc. ii. 123-244. In 



120 ROMEO AND JULIET. 

the speeches of Benvoho and old Montague, we have evidence 
only of a genuine, all-absorbing passion, not a fanciful one. His 
love has been a thing too sacred to allow him even to speak of 
the object of it, to his parents and closest friends. His father 
neither knows, nor can learn of him, the secret of his grief. The 
advice of his friend, Benvolio, to give liberty to his eyes, and to 
examine other beauties, calls forth a response quite different from 
that in the poem to the same kind of advice. In the poem we 
read : 

" To his approved friend, a solemn oath he plight, 
At every feast ykept by day, and banquet made by night, 
At pardons in the church, at games in open street, 
And everywhere he would resort where ladies wont to meet." 

vv. 145-148. 

I^omeo's response in the play to his friend's advice (A. I. Sc. i. 
231-244)^ is quite of another tune : 

" ^671. Be rul'd by me, forget to think of her. 

Rom. o teach me how I should forget to think. 

Be7i. By giving liberty unto thine eyes ; 
Examine other beauties. 

Rom. ^Tk the way 

To call hers, exquisite, in question more : 
These happy masks, that kiss fair ladies brows, 
Being black, put us in mind they hide the fair : 
He that is strucken blind, cannot forget 
The precious treasure of his eyesight lost : 
Show me a mistress that is passing fair. 
What doth her beauty serve, but as a note 
Where I may read who pass'd that passing fair.? 
Farewell : thou canst not teach me to forget. 

Ben. I'll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt." 

In the poem, the nameless object of Romeo's first love does 
not appear at the banquet of the Capulets : and Romeo goes to it 
to seek out a new beauty. In the play, Rosahne is included in 
Capulet's invitation, and called '' my fair niece Rosaline " ; and it 



ROMEO AND JULIET. 121 

is entirely in the hope of seeing her that Romeo, having read for 
the servant the names of those invited, decides to go to the enter- 
tainment, though it's a perilous thing to do, to go uninvited to the 
house of his mortal enemy. 

Romeo, be it understood, is presented to us in the play, as a 
representative of a most refined and exalted sexual love — a love 
which finally develops him into full manhood. And his constitu- 
tional fitness for such a love is first shown us through his unre- 
quited love for Rosaline. And when he is first presented to us, 
he is suffering " the pangs of disprized love." Byron says " Man's 
love is of man's life a thing apart, 'Tis woman's whole existence." 
But this characterization of man's love will not suit Romeo's ; for 
he has been raised up especially by the poet to exhibit sexual 
love in its most refined, exalted, and exalting form. If his first love 
had been even partially requited ; if the object of that first love 
had been incapable, suppose, of fully requiting his love, but had 
requited it to the extent of her power of loving, he would not 
have been justified in transferring it, even if he had transferred it 
upon one capable of fully requiting it. But it was wholly unx^- 
quited. This the poet has emphasized ; and thus unmistakingly 
indicated that the soul of Romeo i^free to accept a response from 
another soul, when that response comes. And it can be true to 
itself only by so doing. It is evident, too, that the poet's purpose 
is that Romeo's soul shall be brought just to that temper which 
renders its response to a kindred soul, spontaneous and imme- 
diate. When he meets with Juliet, his love is something other 
than what is generally signified by love at first sight. It is of a 
more spiritual character. And that more spiritual character is 
largely due, we must suppose, to his previous subjective state, 
induced by his unrequited love. 

The next feature of the play which it is important to note, is 
Juliet's situation and surroundings, before she meets with Romeo. 

The 3d Scene of the ist Act indicates, was meant to indicate, 
the imperfect sympathy, or rather ;/d7-sympathy, which her two 
closest companions, almost her only companions, her mother and 



122 ROMEO AND JULIET. 

her nurse, had with the young girl's most secret being; which 
secret being when it is revealed by her love for Romeo, must, we 
are assured, before that love was awakened, have had a strong 
consciousness of this imperfect or «<?- sympathy, on the part of the 
mother and nurse, and of all around her, and must have been 
ready for an immediate and full response to the first kindred and 
sympathetic soul she should meet with. In the preceding scene, 
to the inquiry of the County Paris, " But now, my lord, what say 
you to my suit? " Capulet replies, " My child is yet a stranger in 
the world ; she hath not seen the change of fourteen years." This 
indicates the seclusion in which she had been kept up to this time. 
But it does not necessarily indicate that her soul has been without 
cravings for sympathy such as those around her were incapable of 
affording. In the 3d Scene, Lady Capulet's idea of marriage is 
revealed to us, as is also that of the gross-minded nurse. Mar- 
riage is to both a mere arrangement, and has nothing to do with 
the souls of those entering into this arrangement. Lady Capulet 
says, '' Tell me, daughter Juliet, how stands your disposition to be 
married?" She knows her daughter's heart has not gone out 
toward any one ; but what of that ? It is about time, she thinks, 
she were married. " Younger than you," she continues, " here in 
Verona, ladies of esteem, are made already mothers : by my count, 
I was your mother much upon these years, that you are now a 
maid. Thus then, in brief : The valiant Paris seeks you for his 
love." The nurse interposes, "A man, young lady! lady, such a 
man, as all the world — why, he's a man of wax." 

Lady Capulet, as is evident from a following speech, expects 
her daughter to give an immediate answer in regard to her mar- 
rying a man whom she has never seen : " What say you ? can you 
love the gentleman? " And then after expatiating merely upon his 
personal appearance, she says, with some impatience (Juliet, as we 
must suppose, not having shown a very warm interest in this to her 
unknown fine gentleman), "speak briefly, can you like of Paris' 
love?" Juliet, who hitherto has known only submission to the 
wishes of mother and nurse, replies, " I'll look to like, if looking 



ROMEO AND JULIET. 1 23 

liking move." This little speech sufficiently indicates that whither 
her heart goes, there will follow her hand, and not elsewhere. Of 
Juliet's aptitude for a deep all-absorbing love, a love " that looks 
on tempests and is never shaken," we have no other intimation, 
previous to her meeting with Romeo. But any stronger intima- 
tion would be objectionable ; and the poet has accordingly given 
us only this slight hint, that Juliet is not disposed to marriage for 
its own sake, and that to her, marriage can be honorable only on 
a true ethical basis. 

The two other lines which she utters in connection with the line 
just quoted, it is important to note : 

♦' But no more deep will I endart mine eye 
Than your consent gives strength to make it fly." 

They indicate the point from which to estimate Juliet's transi- 
tion, through the developing, strengthening, exalting power of 
love, from mere submissive femineity to self-sustained, self-assert- 
ing, heroic, and triumphant womanhood. 

She and Romeo meet at the Capulet masquerade, and such is 
their previous preparedness for each other, that '' a single word, a 
single look, a single touch, have joined two hearts in a moment 
and forever." 

The heart of each 

** Responds, as if with unseen wings, 
An angel touched its quivering strings ; 
And whispers, in its song, 
' Where hast thou stayed so long ! ' " 

To adapt a simile in Tennyson's " Princess," as the lily folds all 
her sweetness up, and slips into the bosom of the lake, so Juliet 
folds herself and slips into Romeo's bosom, and is lost in him. 

In the loss of themselves in each other, Romeo and Juhet find 
themselves. But with Romeo, the finding of self in the loss of 
self, is not so immediately complete as it is with Juhet. And it is 
dramatically just that Romeo should not be so suddenly freed 
from self-consciousness as is Juliet. A man is rarely so suddenly 



124 ROMEO AND JULIET.. 

freed from self-consciousness in love as is a woman. We have this 
exhibited in the garden scene which follows — the 2d Scene of 
the 2d act — the most nearly flawless, in its composition, of the 
entire play. It should be noted that the imagery indulged in, 
sometimes passing into the fanciful, is nearly all in Romeo's 
speeches ; such for example as : 

** Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, 
Having some business, do intreat her eyes 
To twinkle in their spheres till they return. 
What if her eyes were there, they in her head? 
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars, 
As daylight doth a lamp ; her eyes in heaven 
Would through the airy region stream so bright, 
That birds would sing and think it were not night." 

Juliet is direct, straightforward, as if possessed with a deep 
sense of what she has entered upon. 

Shakespeare makes the progress of occurrences which follow 
the marriage much more rapid than in the original poem, where 
we are told, 

*' The summer of their blisse, doth last a month or twain ; 
But winter's blast with speedy foot, doth bring the fall again. 
Whom glorious fortune erst had heaved to the skies, 
By envious fortune overthrown, on earth now groveling lies. 
She paid their former grief with pleasure's doubled gain, 
But now for pleasure's usury, tenfold redoubleth pain." 

w. 949-954- 

The poem then goes on to relate a new outbreak, in the general 
course of outbreaks, of bloody hostilities, "the morrow after 
Easter day," Tybalt being chosen as the leader of the Capulets. 
Romeo, walking with his friends, comes upon the scene, and 
endeavors to allay the strife, 

" to part and bar the blows 
As well of those that were his friends, as of his deadly foes." 

vv. 1005, 1006. 



ROMEO AND JULIET. 1 25 

Tybalt, without provocation, furiously attacks Romeo, who tells 
him he does him wrong, as his purpose is only to part the fray, 
and that not dread but other weighty cause stays his hand — the 
weighty cause being his marriage with Tybalt's cousin Juliet, a 
fact which Tybalt does not know of. Tybalt is deaf to reason, 
and forces Romeo to defend himself. The result is that 

*' Our Romeus thrust him thro' the throat, and so is Tybalt slain." 

V. 1034. 

In the play, there's a modification of what is given in the poem 
in the conduct and construction of the action, — a modification 
which it is important to note, as it is in the service of the exhibi- 
tion of Romeo's character — his gentleness and his honorableness 
are strongly brought out by the modification. Tybalt is the evil 
genius of discord set over against Romeo, the loving and the 
beloved. In the poem, Tybalt does not, as in the play, figure at 
the masquerade : he is not even alluded to as being there. In 
the poem, a month or twain after the marriage of the lovers, which 
has been kept a secret, he attacks Romeo when the latter attempts 
to allay the strife, simply because he is a Montague, not from any 
special offence. But in the play, Tybalt, previous to his fatal 
encounter with Romeo, is specially enraged against him, for his 
bold and, as he regards it, insulting intrusion at the masquerade : 
hearing there Romeo's voice, he says : 

*' This, by his voice, should be a Montague : — 
Fetch me my rapier, boy : — What ! dares the slave 
Come hither, cover'd with an antic face. 
To fleer and scorn at our solemnity ? 
Now, by the stock and honour of my kin, 
To strike him dead I hold it not a sin. 

Cap. Why, how now, kinsman? wherefore storm you so? 

Tyb. Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe ; 
A villain, that is hither come in spite. 
To scorn at our solemnity this night. 

Cap. Young Romeo, is't ? 

Tyb. 'Tis he, that villain Romeo. 



126 ROMEO AND JULIET. 

Cap. Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone, 
He bears him like a portly gentleman ; 
And, to say truth, Verona brags of him 
To be a virtuous and well-govern'd youth : 
I would not for the wealth of all this town, 
Here in my house do him disparagement : 
Therefore be patient, take no note of him : 
It is my will ; the which if thou respect. 
Show a fair presence, and put off these frowns, 
An ill-beseeming semblance for a feast. 

Tyb. It fits, when such a villain is a guest ; 
ril not endure him. 

Cap. He shall be endurM. 

What, goodman boy ! I say, he shall : Go to ; 
Am I the master here, or you? go to. 
You'll not endure him ! God shall mend my soul — 
You'll make a mutiny among my guests ! 
You will set cock-a-hoop ! you'll be the man ! 

Tyb. Why, uncle, 'tis a shame. 

Cap. Go to, go to ; 

You are a saucy boy : — Is't so indeed? 
This trick may chance to scathe you — I know what. 
You must contrary me ! — marry, 'tis time — 
Well said, my hearts ! — You are a princox ; go 
Be quiet, or — More light, more light! for shame! 
I'll make you quiet ; What ! — Cheerly, my hearts ! 

Tyb. Patience perforce with wdlful choler meeting 
Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting. 
I will withdraw : but this intrusion shall. 
Now seeming sweet, convert to bitter gall." S^Exit. 

In the play, the heat of the day on which Romeo and Juliet 
are married is not yet over, when Tybalt, brooding upon the in- 
sult conceived the previous night at the ball, meets with Romeo's 
friends, Mercutio and Benvolio (A. III. Sc. i. 40). The personal 
encounter which soon follows takes the place of the general fray 
we have in the poem, a month or twain after the marriage. In 
comparing the play with the poem, we are helped to see, but it 
is plain to see without such outside help, at what special pains, 



ROMEO AND JULIET. 12/ 

pains which have gone for nothing with some commentators, the 
poet was, to exhibit the sweetly gentle character of Romeo (and 
he has a true manly valor, withal ; he's no coward), and perfectly 
to justify his slaying of Tybalt. There's not the slightest rashness 
in the act. What he does he does when forbearance ceases to be 
a virtue. Tieck says, without any authority whatever from the 
play, that " in good fortune as in bad, he is violent and rough." 
But as Skottowe has noted, it not appearing enough to the drama- 
tist, that Tybalt, as in the poem, should be the unprovoked aggres- 
sor, or that Romeo's self-command should only be overcome by 
repeated insults, he adds the aggravation of Mercutio's murder — 
a murder due, also, to Romeo's coming between them, with the 
good intention of parting them. Romeo has patiently endured 
Tybalt's treatment of himself, by reason of his marriage with Juliet, 
his love for her being reflected upon her kinsman ; but when his 
friend Mercutio is slain in his behalf, and the furious Tybalt comes 
back again, he exclaims : " Alive ! in triumph ! and Mercutio 
slain ! Away to heaven, respective lenity " (that is, the lenity he 
has thus far shown, out of regard to his relationship to Tybalt, by 
his marriage with Juliet), " and fire-eyed fury be my conduct now " 
(that is, conductor or guide) ! " Now, Tybalt, take the villain back 
again, that late thou gavest me." 

Under the circumstances, the poet could not have preserved to 
us the requisite respect for Romeo, in any other way. He also 
emphasizes Romeo's gentle forbearance and honorable conduct, 
through what Benvolio is made to relate of the affair to the 
Prince (A. III. Sc. i. 157-180). The point to be especially 
noted is, that the cause of what proves such a misfortune to 
Romeo lies outside of himself, and is not at all attributable, as 
most commentators attribute it, to Romeo's own character. He 
and Juliet are " star-crossed lovers." That's the important thing 
to note. And if it is not sufficiently noted, if the lovers, in them- 
selves considered, are regarded as responsible for their misfortunes, 
an entirely false understanding of the play must be the result. 
The poet's dramatic purpose demanded that Romeo's character 



128 ROMEO AND JULIET. 

should be, throughout, such as not in the least to damage that 
purpose, which, I repeat, is, to exhibit the moral energy induced 
by an all-absorbing love in conflict with the most adverse circum- 
stances. All the calamities to which that love is subjected are 
represented as due, exclusively due, to objective, outside causes. 

Before the sad sentence of banishment imposed upon Romeo 
by the Prince is known to her, comes Juliet's lovely Epithalamium 
(A. III. Sc. ii.), the fullest signification of which depends on a 
proper understanding of " runaway's eyes," in the 6th hne : 

*' Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night, 
That runaway's eyes may wink, and Romeo 
Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen." 

No crux criticorum in all the plays of Shakespeare has occa- 
sioned such an amount of commentary as has this. But I think it 
should be considered as put forever at rest, by the explanation of 
N. J. Halpin, as given in the 2d volume of " The (old) Shakespeare 
Society's Papers," 1845. He has shown with entire conclusiveness 
from ancient mythology, and from contemporary epithalamic and 
other erotic poems, that "runaway" means Cupid : who, in refer- 
ence to his runaway propensity, was called by the Greeks SpaireTrjs 
8/oa7r€Tt8as, of which the English runaway is an exact translation, 
and by the 'L2!ims,fiigiiivus, profugiis, vagus ; and by the English, 
truant, deserter, wanderer, vagrant, vagabond, runagate. 

"Assuming this interpretation estabhshed," says Halpin, "we 
arrive at the full hymeneal meaning of the passage; which, 
stripped of its conventional diction, appears to be this : Secrecy 
is essential to our safety. Let the day, therefore, depart, and let 
Night spread her curtain around, and let not Cupid discharge his 
ministry of lighting-up the bride-chamber. If (as painted by 
some) he have eyes, let them wink — i.e., be darkened ; for we 
have need of darkness, that the interview, being invisible, may be 
untalked-of : and we have no need of light, because lovers can 
see by their own beauties. If, however (as depicted by others), 
he be blind, it is all as it should be : his blindness agrees with 



ROMEO AND JULIET. 1 29 

that darkness, for the sake of which the presence of night is so 
desirable. 

'' The passage, . . . should be printed and pointed thus : 
" ' Spread thy close curtain, love-performing Night ! 
That Run-away's eyes may wink, and Romeo 
Leap to these arms untalked-of and unseen. 
Lovers can see to do their amorous rites 
By their own beauties : or, if Love be blind — 
It best agrees with Night.' 

"And now it may be asked, how comes Juliet so conversant with 
the topics and diction of this class of poetry : and why, on this 
occasion, does she pour out her heart in its language ? 

" In answer to the first we may observe, that the nuptial pageant 
had, at that time, become common and popular in England. Our 
scene, it is true, lies in Italy ; but it matters little whether the 
Italians observed the same custom or not ; for Shakespeare gives 
to every country the manners of his own ; and, on this cosmopol- 
itan principle, he has (in common with some of his dramatic 
contemporaries) given proof of the habitual occurrence of such 
festivities in his time, by celebrating with the nuptial mask the 
marriage of some of his heroines. 

" From the prevalence of the practice, then, it is to be assumed 
that Juliet had witnessed the bridal ceremonies of many of her 
young companions, and, like other noble persons of the day, ' ex- 
pressed a most real affection ' to the parties by taking a character 
in the mask. Thus might she have caught up the topics and 
language appropriated to this species of poetry : and hence may 
be inferred her familiarity with thoughts and expressions not likely, 
in any other way, to have obtained entrance into the mind of an 
innocent and unsophisticated girl of fourteen years of age. 

"And why (in the second place) does she harp upon this string 
on the present occasion ? 

" Alas, poor JuHet ! who is there that, in the concomitant cir- 
cumstances, does not see the reason? It is her bridal day; but, 
a bridal without its triumphs. . . . 



130 ROMEO AND JULIET. 

" Her marriage is clandestine. She can have no hymeneal mask. 
No troops of friends led her to the church, nor followed her to the 
banquet. No father — no mother — gave away her hand. No 
minstrel sung her nuptial hymn ; and the hour that should con- 
duct her all glorious to the bride-chamber finds her alone, un- 
friended, without countenance, without sympathy. Is it any 
wonder, then, that the absence of those festive rites, which, under 
happier auspices, would have given splendour to her nuptials, 
should recall them to her imagination, and — with the vision — 
bring vividly to her memory the sentiments appropriated to such 
occasions, and the very turn of expression which they had habitu- 
ally acquired ? Nay, is it not of the very essence of our nature, 
that, pacing that solitary chamber, while the twilight was thicken- 
ing into darkness, and the growing silence left the throbbings of 
her heart audible, she should brood over the impassioned imagery 
of the Bridal Song, and give it a half unconscious utterance? 
Poor Juliet ! She had nobody to sing this song for her. It bursts 
spontaneously from her own lips. 

" I cannot but think that this view invests the passage with a 
melancholy charm, unsurpassed in its pathos by any situation in 
the whole range of the drama, except, perhaps, that of Iphigenia 
at the sacrificial altar. It is scarcely possible, indeed, that it can 
ever again awaken emotions so intense as it must have kindled in 
the days of Elizabeth and James ; because its language does not 
call up in our minds the same associations as in the minds of our 
ancestors. The Hymeneal Mask has vanished from our customs, 
and its idiom has become a dead letter. To us the language is 
not a suggestion, but a study : to them it was fraught with a pecu- 
liar significance, and every image was coupled with an every-day 
reality. The very opening lines — so essentially epithalamic — 
must have conjured up, to an auditory in whose ears the phrase- 
ology was as 'familiar as household words,' the whole 'pride, 
pomp, and circumstance ' of honored wedlock ; and they would 
have instinctively imagined the magnificent and joyous solemnities 
that should have blessed the union of the only daughter of the 



ROMEO AND JULIET. I31 

rich and noble Capulet with the only son of the no less noble and 
wealthy Montague. But what was the scene before their eyes? 
Where was the bridal escort? where the assembled friends of 
* both their houses ' ? where the crowd of gay and gallant youths 
who should have homaged the beauty of the bride — and where, 
oh, where, the maidens that were her fellows to bear her company ? 
Of all the customary pageant, but one soHtary figure — the figure 
of the bride herself — is to be seen. All is solitude, and darkness, 
and silence. But one sound breaks the unnatural stillness — the 
voice of that sweet, lonely girl, who — like the young bird timidly 
practising, in the unfrequented shade, the remembered song of its 
kindred — ' sits darkling ' in her sequestered bower, and eases 
her impassioned heart in snatches of i-einembered song, which, in 
her mind, too, are associated with her situation. 

"And what a song it is ! — sweet as the nightingale's that 

" * Nightly sings on yon pomegranate tree ; ' 

and ardent as when in Eden, 

" ' the amorous bird of night 
Sung Spousal ; and bid haste the evening Star 
On his hill-top to light the bridal lamp : ^ 

but it is sad and ominous withal ; and, to the auditor famiHar 
with its import, as portentous and melancholy as the fatal descant 
which, in poets' ears, preludes the departure of the dying swan." 

The decree of banishment (III. i. 192-200), the epithalamic 
monologue of Juliet (III. ii. 1-31), the return of the Nurse with 
the sad news, which she communicates to Juliet in a torturing man- 
ner (III. ii. 36-143), the attempted consolation of Romeo, by the 
Friar (III. iii. 1-80), the message and ring from his love, brought 
to the Friar's cell by the Nurse, and the arrangement for the meet- 
ing of the lovers at night (III. iii, 81-1 75), the fixing of the day by 
Capulet, of Juliet's marriage to Paris (III. iv.), Romeo's departure 
for Mantua (III. v. 1-59), all follow in rapid succession, without 
any intervals, from the slaying of Tybalt in the afternoon till the 



132 ROMEO AND JULIET. 

early dawn of the next day, when the lovers part, uttering the 
sweetly-sad dialogue poem, in which they question whether it be 
the nightingale or the lark, they hear, and whether the light which 
is in the sky, be the light of the coming day. Their hearts are 
filled with dire forebodings, and shrink with an intuitive anticipa- 
tion of the stroke of doom. As Romeo descends, JuHet says : 

" Art thou gone so ? my lord, my love, my friend ! 
I must hear from thee every day in the hour, 
For in a minute there are many days : 
O, by this count I shall be much in years 
Ere I again behold my Romeo ! 

Rom. Farewell ! I will omit no opportunity 
That may convey my greetings, love, to thee. 

Jill. O, think'st thou we shall ever meet again? 

Rom. I doubt it not ; and all these woes shall serve 
For sweet discourses in our time to come. 

Jul. O God ! I have an all-divining soul ; 
Methinks I see thee, now thou art below, 
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb : 
Either my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale. 

Rom. And trust me, love, in my eye so do you : 
Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu ! " 

{Exit Romeo. 

The pangs of separation from Romeo which Juliet has to suffer, 
alone and without sympathy from father, mother, or nurse, are 
followed immediately by even a severer trial, but a trial which 
nerves her soul to the greatest intensity, and gives it all the moral 
courage demanded by the trying situation. She who but three 
days before was the submissive girl, with all her capabilities still 
quiescent, saying to her mother when the subject of marriage was 
first broached to her, 

" no more deep will I endart mine eye 
Than your consent gives strength to make it fly," 

passes with one bound, as it were, into a self-sustained, heroic 
womanhood. 



ROMEO AND JULIET. 1 33 

When Lady Capulet tells her the " joyful tidings " that " early 
next Thursday morn, the gallant, young, and noble gentleman, the 
County Paris, at St. Peter's Church, shall happily make her there 
a joyful bride," all the woman and all the wife rise within her and 
assert themselves, and she replies : 

*' Now, by St. Peter's church, and Peter too, 
He shall not make me there a joyful bride. 
I wonder at this haste ; that I must wed 
Ere he that should be husband comes to woo. 
I pray you tell my lord and father, madam, 
I will not marry yet ; and, when I do, I swear. 
It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate, 
Rather than Paris. These are news indeed ! 

La. Cap. Here comes your father ; tell him so yourself. 
And see how he will take it at your hands." 

This spiritually desiccated father, who is incapable of any sym- 
pathy with the young girl's feelings, severs, by his grossly brutal 
treatment of her, on this occasion, the last ties which should bind 
her to him, as a daughter. When he goes out, the poor girl turns 
to her mother for sympathy, but she proves herself equally insen- 
sible and heartless, replying merely to her daughter's passionate 
entreaty, 

" Talk not to me, for Til not speak a word : 
Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee." 

To the old nurse she then appeals for comfort and counsel. 
But what comfort and counsel can come from such a mass of 
earthiness and grossness, to one who has been lifted above all 
temporal considerations? The old idiot urges that Paris is "a 
lovely gentleman ! Romeo's a dishclout to him : " etc. 

She now stands alone, and she has the inward resources to do 
so, and " stands upright as the palm-tree in a realm of sand." To 
the nurse, to whom she has made a last appeal for sympathy, with- 
out receiving any, she calmly says, " Go, counsellor, thou and my 
bosom henceforth shall be twain. — I'll to the friar, to know his 



134 ROMEO AND JULIET. 

remedy; if all else fail, myself have power to die." To the dear 
old sympathetic friar she goes, at whose cell, before she can 
unburden her heart to him, she first has to undergo the additional 
affliction of meeting Paris. But she proves herself quite equal to 
respond to what are to her empty words from a man to whom 
marriage is but a social arrangement, quite distinct from " the love 
of wedded souhr When she is rid of him, her pent-up feelings 
burst out upon her only friend ; but above these feelings towers 
the will to do whatever desperate thing he may propose. 
To the Friar's words : 

" Hold, daughter ; I do spy a kind of hope, 
Which craves as desperate an execution 
As that is desperate which we would prevent. 
If, rather than to marry county Paris, 
Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself, 
Then is it likely, thou wilt undertake 
A thing like death to chide away this shame, 
That cop'st with death himself to 'scape from it ; 
And, if thou dar'st, Pll give thee remedy." 

She replies : 

" O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris, 
From oif the battlements of yonder tower ; 
Or walk in thievish ways ; or bid me lurk 
Where serpents are ; chain me with roaring bears ; 
Or hide me nightly in the charnel-house, 
O'er-cover'd quite with dead men's rattling bones. 
With reeky shanks, and yellow chapless skulls ; 
Or bid me go into a new-made grave. 
And hide me with a dead man in his shroud ; 
Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble ; 
And I will do it without fear or doubt, 
To live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love," 

The Friar then proposes a desperate remedy, which she is at 
once ready to accept, and the means by which she and Romeo 
are to be reunited : 



ROMEO AND JULIET. i^c 

'' Hold, then ; go home, be merry, give consent 
To marry Paris : Wednesday is to-morrow ; 

To-morrow night look that thou lie alone, 

Let not thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber : 

Take thou this vial, being then in bed. 

And this distilled liquor drink thou off: 

When, presently, through all thy veins shall run 

A cold and drowsy humour ; for no pulse 

Shall keep his native progress, but surcease. 

No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou liv'st ; 

The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade 

To paly ashes ; thy eyes' windows fall, 

Like death, when he shuts up the day of life ; 

Each part, deprived of supple government, 

Shall stiff, and stark, and cold, appear like death : 

And this borrow^ hkeness of shrunk death 

Thou shalt continue two-and-forty hours, 

And then awake as from a pleasant sleep. 

Now when the bridegroom in the morning comes 

To rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead : 

Then (as the manner of our country is,) 

In thy best robes uncover'd on the bier, 

Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault, 

Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie. 

In the mean time, against thou shalt awake, 

Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift ; 

And hither shall he come ; and he and I 

Will watch thy waking, and that very night 

Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua. 

And this shall free thee from this present shame, 

If no inconstant toy, nor womanish fear 

Abate thy valour in the acting it. 

Jul Give me, give me ! O, tell not me of fear. 
Frt, Hold ; get you gone, be strong and prosperous 
In this resolve : Til send a friar with speed 
To Mantua, with my letters to thy lord. 

Jul Love give me strength ! and strength shall help afford. 
Farewell, dear father ! " 



136 ROMEO AND JULIET. 

Returning home, she makes her submission to her father, who 
is overjoyed at her supposed obedience. To his ugly speech, as 
she enters, 

" How now, my headstrong ! Where have you been gadding? " 

She repHes : 

" Where I have learn'd me to repent the sin 
Of disobedient opposition 
To you and your behests, and am enjoinM 
By holy Laurence to fall prostrate here, 
To beg your pardon : pardon, I beseech you ! 
Henceforward I am ever ruled by you." 

Under the trying circumstances, this speech is not to be con- 
demned as deception on the part of Juhet, but should be regarded 
as in obedience to a higher principle than truthfulness to a parent 
who would wrong the soul of his child, 

Capulet, in his high glee, resolves that the knot shall be knit up 
to-morrow morning; that's Wednesday, a day earher than he 
before settled upon. In his mind, the whole city is much bound 
to the reverend holy friar, for bringing about such a happy result. 
He can hardly contain himself: 

" Go, nurse, go with her: we'll to church to-morrow. 

\Exeu7it Juliet a7id Nurse. 
La. Cap. We shall be short in our provision : 
'Tis now near night. 

Cap. Tush, I will stir about. 
And all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife : 
Go thou to Juliet, help to deck up her ; 
I'll not to bed to-night ; let me alone ; 
I'll play the housewife for this once. What, ho ! 
They are all forth. Well, I will walk myself 
To County Paris, to prepare him up 
Against to-morrow. My heart is wondrous light, 
Since this same wayward girl is so reclaim'd." 



ROMEO AND JULIET. 1 37 

The nurse attends Juliet to her chamber. Lady Capulet enters 
to know whether her help is needed. Juliet replies : 

" No, madam ; we have culPd such necessaries 
As are behoveful for our state to-morrow : 
So please you, let me now be left alone. 
And let the nurse this night sit up with you, 
For I am sure you have your hands full all 
In this so sudden business. 

La. Cap. Good-night : 

Get thee to bed and rest, for thou hast need." 

{^Exeunt Lady Capulet and Nuj-se. 

Juliet is now left alone with her own soul, and the soliloquy 
which she utters bears testimony to her moral energy : 

" Jid. Farewell ! — God knows when we shall meet again. 
I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins, 
That almost freezes up the heat of life : 
I'll call them back again to comfort me. 
Nurse ! — What should she do here ? 
My dismal scene I needs must act alone. — 
Come, vial. — 

What if this mixture do not work at all? 
Shall I be married to-morrow morning? 
No, no ; — this shall forbid it : — lie thou there. — 

\_Laying down a dagger. 
What if it be a poison, which the friar 
Subtly hath minister'd to have me dead, 
Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour'd. 
Because he married me before to Romeo ? 
I fear it is : and yet, methinks, it should not, 
For he hath still been tried a holy man. 
How if, when I am laid into the tomb, 
I wake before the time that Romeo 
Come to redeem me ? there's a fearful point ! 
Shall I not then be stifled in the vault, 
To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in, 
And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes? 
Or, if I live, is it not very like. 



138 ROMEO AND JULIET. 

The horrible conceit of death and night, 
Together with the terror of the place, — 
As in a vault, an ancient receptacle, 
Where, for these many hundred years, the bones 
Of all my buried ancestors are pack'd ; 
Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth, 
Lies fest'ring in his shroud ; where, as they say. 
At some hours in the night spirits resort ; — 
Alack, alack, is it not like, that I, 
So early waking, — what with loathsome smells 
And shrieks like mandrakes' torn out of the earth, 
That living mortals, hearing them, run mad ; — 
O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught. 
Environed with all these hideous fears? 
And madly play with my forefathers' joints ? 
And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud ? 
And, in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone. 
As with a club, dash out my desperate brains ? 
O, look ! methinks I see my cousin's ghost 
Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body 
Upon a rapier's point : — stay, Tybalt, stay ! — 
Romeo, I come ! this do I drink to thee." 

{She throws herself on the bed. 

Mrs. Jameson says, in concluding her long article on Juliet, 
" with all her immense capacity of affection and imagination, 
there is a deficiency of reflection and of moral energy " / and this 
characterization is reiterated by other critics. To impute a 
deficiency of moral energy to this Shakespearian ideal of moral 
energy, is something surprising. Her moral energy approaches 
the sublime, when she takes the sleeping potion, her imagifia- 
tion having first called up all the horrors of the charnel-vault. 
But her moral energy is equal to the encountering of even 
these. She has, indeed, great fear; but our interest is in her 
superiority to it. Heroism implies fear. And the poet had an 
artistic purpose in making her call up, as she does, these horrors, 
namely, to emphasize her moral energy, to bring into bold relief 
her will power. Some critics understand that she takes the potion 



ROMEO AND JULIET. I^g 

when she loses herself in fright. If that were true, the whole play 
would be ruined. Where could the dramatic interest come frorn^ 
If Juliet does not belong to herself at the time she takes the 
potion, all dramatic interest in the act is gone. It has no more 
dramatic interest than has the leaping of a maniac from a third- 
story wmdow. But actresses often fail to bring out distincdy the 
idea ofthe superiority of Juliet's 2£//// power and moral energy to 
her dread imaginings. Some leave no doubt as to their delirium 
just before taking the potion. ' 

Lord Lytton, in his strongly favorable article on Miss Anderson's 
Juliet, m The Nineteenth Century, December, 1884, after pro- 
nouncing her acting of a portion of the soliloquy as not only 
excellent, but surprisingly excellent, remarks: "As the soliloquy 
advances, the acting degenerates. She rises, rushes about the 
stage, rants, screams, loses all dignity, all pathos, becomes theatri- 
cal, conventionally tragic, wholly ineffective, and ruins the senti- 
ment of the scene by a painful relapse under the tyranny of the 
worst traditions of the Enghsh stage."* 

The scene which follows, the 4th of the 4th Act, is one of those 
scenes so frequent in Shakespeare's Plays which, by their common- 
placeness and even, sometimes, vulgarity, serve to deepen the 
impressions of the sad and the tragic. In the 5th Scene, the Nurse 
finds Juliet dead, as is supposed, in her chamber, and clamorous 
selfish lamentation follows. In the midst of it. Friar Laurence 
and Paris, with musicians, enter. The Friar subordinates what 
under the circumstances, he must regard as an inferior principle' 
to a superior, and speaks as one knowing nothing more of the case 
than the rest, and silences the clamor. 

" Peace, ho, for shame ! confusion's cure lives not 
In these confusions. Heaven and yourself 
Had part in this fair maid ; now heaven hath all, 
And all the better is it for the maid ; 
Your part in her you could not keep from death; 
But heaven keeps his part in eternal life. 



,, * L^'^d Lytton's article is reprinted in " Shakesperiana," January, 188^, Vol 
11. No, xm. pp. 1-22. 



I40 ROMEO AND JULIET. 

The most you sought was her promotion ; 
For 'twas your heaven, she should be advanc'd : 
And weep ye now, seeing she is advanc'd — 
Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself ? 
O, in this love, you love your child so ill. 
That you run mad, seeing that she is well : * 
She's not well married that lives married long ; 
But she's best married that dies married young. 
Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary 
On this fair corse ; and, as the custom is, 
In all her best array bear her to church : 
For though some f nature bids us all lament, 
Yet nature's tears are reason's merriment." 

And when Capulet, Lady Capulet, Paris, and Friar go out, the 
dialogue between Peter and the musicians summoned to poor 
Juliet's marriage serves, as did the scene following Juliet's tak- 
ing of the potion, to deepen the impression of the sad occasion. 
Who can fail to be impressed with the grimness of such contrast- 
ing scenes ? They are a feature of Shakespeare's dramatic art 
which was quite new to the world, and which especially shocked 
the classical critics of the last century. But criticism has taken a 
higher stand, and approvingly recognizes in such scenes, the bitter 
irony which humanity everywhere presents. 

(See "Contrasting Scenes," pp. 50 and 51, in "The Shake- 
speare Key." By Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke ; and " On 
the Porter in Macbeth." By J. W. Hales. The New Shak- 
spere Society's Transactions. 1874. pp. 255-269.) 

The end of the 4th day of the Play has now been reached, and 
the 5th is entered upon at Mantua (A. V. Sc. i.). "The lively 
and cheerful images of this [Juliet's epithalamic] soliloquy are in 
striking contrast with the situation of the speaker, and serve to 
heighten the pity with which we anticipate the fate of the lovely 



* "We use to say the dead are w^//." — Antony and Cleopatra y A. II. 
Sc. V. 32. 

t The reading of Qq. and F^ Most editions substitute " fond," i.e.^ foolish. 



ROMEO AND JULIET. I4I 

and unconscious victim. By a similar resort to this lightning be- 
fore death, the poet has, at a later period of the action, skilfully 
filled the mind of his hero with happy dreams and joyful presages, 
which throw the approaching catastrophe into deep and dark- 
shadowed reHef." 

" Rom. If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep, 
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand : 
My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne ; 
And all this day, an unaccustomed spirit 
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts. 
I dreamt, my lady came and found me dead : — 
Strange dream, that gives a dead man leave to think ! — 
And breathed such life with kisses in my lips, 
That I revived, and was an emperor. 
Ah me ! how sweet is love itself possessed, 
When but love's shadows are so rich in joy ! 

Enter Balthasar. 

News from Verona ! — How now, Balthasar? 
Dost thou not bring me letters from the friar? 
How doth my lady ? Is my father well ? 
How fares my Juliet ? That I ask again ; 
For nothing can be ill, if she be well. 

Bal. Then she is well, and nothing can be ill : 
Her body sleeps in Capels' monument, 
And her immortal part with angels lives. 
I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault. 
And presently took post to tell it you : 
O, pardon me for bringing these ill news, 
Since you did leave it for my office, sir. 

Ro7n. Is it even so? then I defy you, stars ! — " 

As the poet indicated the point where JuHet attained to self- 
poised, self-rehant womanhood, in her one short sentence to the 
Nurse, to whom, when father and mother failed in sympathy, she 
appealed for comfort and received none, " Go, counsellor, thou 
and my bosom shall be henceforth twain," so he has also indicated 
the point where Romeo attains to self-poised, self-reliant manhood, 



142 ROMEO AND JULIET. 

in the short sentence, " then I defy you, stars! " From this point, 
Romeo is completely master of himself — nothing outside of him- 
self can sway his purpose : which purpose is, as he expresses it, 
over the supposed dead body of Juliet, " to shake the yoke of in- 
auspicious stars from his world-wearied flesh." This explains 
"Then I defy you, stars ! " 

He continues his speech to Balthasar : 

" Thou know'st my lodging : get me ink and paper, 
And hire post-horses ; I will hence to-night. 

Bal. I do beseech you, sir, have patience ; 
Your looks are pale and wild, and do import 
Some misadventure. 

Rom. Tush, thou art deceived ; 

Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do. 
Hast thou no letters to me from the friar? 

Bal. No, my good lord. 

Rom. No matter: get thee gone, 

And hire those horses : Fll be with thee straight. 

{Exit Balthasar. 
Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night." 

He buys a poison of an apothecary, and sets off immediately 
for Verona. In the 2d Scene of the 5th Act, we learn how Friar 
John, who was sent by Friar Laurence with a letter to Romeo, 
informing him of his plans for his reunion with Juliet, was pre- 
vented from delivering it. As soon as Friar John returns with the 
letter, Friar Laurence resolves to go at once to the tomb of the 
Capulets, to be on hand when Juliet awakes. But the good man 
arrives too late. Before he enters the churchyard, Romeo has 
opened the tomb, with mattock and wrenching iron, has fought 
with and slain Paris, has taken the poison, and is already dead, 
having, in the conclusion of his soliloquy over the supposed dead 
body of his Juliet, given expression to what the poet is at the 
pains to emphasize throughout the Play, but which some commen- 
tators have closed their eyes to, namely, that Romeo and Juliet 
are '' star-crossed lovers " — that their sorrows are due to objec- 



ROMEO AND JULIET. j .^ 

tive outside causes, and not at all to causes existing within them- 
selves. '' O here," says Romeo, 

" Will I set up my everlasting rest, 
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars 
From this world-wearied flesh. —Eyes, look your last! 
Arms, take your last embrace ! and lips, O you 
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss 

A dateless bargain to engrossing death ! 

Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide ! 
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on 
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark! 
Here's to my love ! — lDrmks.-\ O, true apothecary ! 
Thy drugs are quick. — Thus with a kiss I die." 

Even Ruskin, one of the most careful of readers, says, alluding 
to Romeo's forcing open the vault, '^ the wise and entirely brave 
stratagem of the wife is brought to ruinous issue by the reckless 
impatience of her husband." But even here he cannot be charged 
with reckless impatience. He is unacquainted with the friar's 
plan and has been informed by Balthasar that JuHet is dead and 
that her body has been placed in the vault of the Capulets — and 
he of course believes her dead when he opens the vault. 

Juliet is, however, throughout the play, more purely heroic than 
Romeo. She's the true hero of the play. There's an interesting 
passage in Ruskin's "Sesame and Lilies (of Queens' Gardens)," 
as to the superiority of Shakespeare's heroines to his heroes. 
He asserts, indeed, in his bold way, that - Shakespeare has no 
heroes ; — he has only heroines." 

The poet has brought the gentleness (not rashness) of Romeo, 
m his encounter with Paris, into the same bold relief as in his 
encounter with Tybalt. What a contrast the two present, of the 
genuine and the conventional I 

Paris's self-consciousness and self-complacency are shown even 
when he strews flowers upon Juliet's tomb : 

'' Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew : 
O woe, thy canopy is dust nnd stones, 



144 ROMEO AND JULIET. 

Which with sweet water nightly I will dew, 

Or, wanting that, with tears distilled by moans.'" 

One is disposed to read these lines with a lisp, and to slur 
the r's. 

Paris observes the etiquette of bereavement. He's a nice 
young man, he is, who wouldn't neglect any of the conventional 
proprieties of life for the world. But such nice young men, and so 
conventionally correct and proper, Juliets generally don't take to. 

It seems almost a mistake to call the play a tragedy, as it has 
such a triumphant ending — triumphant in regard to the lovers 
themselves, and triumphant, inasmuch as the hostile famihes join 
hands in peace over the dead bodies of the lovers. The very 
funeral vault, which is the scene of their final acts, acts which 
seal their eternal devotion, is invested with a poetic charm, and 
filled with a poetic fragrance. 

The Prince says, as he stands with the heads of the two fam- 
ilies and their attendants, in front of the monument of the Cap- 
ulets, before the day has dawned, and with the beautiful bodies of 
the lovers before him : 

" Capulet ! — Montague ! 
See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate. 
That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love ! 
And I, for winking at your discords too, 
Have lost a brace of kinsmen : — all are punish'd. 
Cap. O brother Montague, give me thy hand. 
This is my daughter's jointure, for no more 
Can I demand. 

Mo7i. But I can give thee more : 

For I will raise her statue in pure gold ; 
That whiles Verona by that name is known, 
There shall no figure at such rate be set. 
As that of true and faithful Juliet. 

Cap. As rich shall Romeo by his lady lie ; 
Poor sacrifices of our enmity ! " 



COMMENTARY ON ROMEO AND JULIET. 145 



THE COMMENTARY ON ROMEO AND 
JULIET. 



THE critics, English, German, and French, have, with but few 
exceptions, attributed to Shakespeare the predetermination, 
in this Play, of exhibiting the bad, the fatal consequences of vio- 
lent, unrestrained passion : and the importance of moderation — 
of observing the golden mean between too much and too little ; 
and in accordance with this view, they have regarded Friar Lau- 
rence as the poet's spokesman — put into the play for the special 
purpose of vicariously giving voice to the moderate and the pru^ 
dential. Such a mode of proceeding may be necessary to dram- 
atists of an inferior order, whose work moves under the condition 
of a notion of some kind. But Shakespeare's Plays, none of them, 
move under such condition. He chose the subject of Romeo 
and Juliet for its passionate capabilities ; he is the artistic physi- 
ologist of human passion ; and having strong in himself the health- 
iest moral sensibihties, his penetrative, plastic intellect manipu- 
lated his material with such artistic skill that the dramatic result 
was a vivid and beautiful poem, bodying forth " the power and the 
triumph of love." (The leading object of a literary and artistic 
education should be, to take in the concrete and the personal as 
a direct, immediate language, not an indirect, a mediate language 
which has to be translated into the notioiial before it means any- 
thing. But such is the set of the general mind in these days, 
learned and unlearned, that the concrete and the personal are, 
more or less, like a foreign language which has to be translated 
mto the more familiar language of the intellect, of the abstract 
and the notional.) 



146 COMMENTARY ON ROMEO AND JULIET. 

What is put into the mouth of the good Friar Laurence, rather 
than expressing, as many of the leading commentators understand 
it, the designed moral of the Play, offsets, in the way of sober 
philosophy, what Shakespeare must have regarded as nobler than 
a sober philosophy, — namely, a love which, under the wholly 
adverse circumstances by which it was beset, was destined to a 
tragic issue ; but that tragic issue had itself an issue which devo- 
tion unto death on the part of the lovers, alone could have 
brought about. This is explicitly set forth in the Prologue, 
which is the best key to the Play, whether furnished by Shake- 
speare himself or not. It is omitted in the Folios. In the ist 
Quarto it consists of but 1 2 lines, and is evidently not a true ren- 
dering of the original. The form in which it is now always printed 
is that of the 2d Quarto of 1599. It contains no charge against 
the lovers of "rashness," "imprudence," "want of proper re- 
straint," and the like, to which the sorrows and death of the 
lovers are attributed by so many commentators. 

" Two households, both alike in dignity, 
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, 
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, 
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. 
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes 
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life ; 
Whose misadventur'd piteous overthrows 
Doth with their death bury their parents' strife. 
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love, 
And the continuance of their parents' rage, 
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove, 
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage ; 
The which if you with patient ears attend. 
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend." 

Nothing about fatal rashness on the part of the lovers; the 
causes of their piteous overthrows are all objective (outside of 
themselves), not subjective (within themselves). This is the 
most important point to recognize at the outset of the study of 



COMMENTARY ON ROMEO AND JULIET. iaj 

the play. And it's important in itself, as it involves a true under- 
standing of the poet's dramatic art -while the view, so generally 
entertamed (by critics), that the ardent love which is the subject 
of the drama, is presented as something to be condemned for its 
violent excess, involves a false understanding of the poet's dra- 
matic art. As indicating the general drift of criticism on the 
Play, in regard to the lovers, I shall cite a number of passa-^s 
(some of them of considerable length) from critics of hi^h au- 
thority. 1 do this to show that I'm not gratuitously insisting on 
what many an unsophisticated reader, on what most unsophisti- 
cated readers, would regard as a thing of course. 

And first Dr. Gervinus, in his -' Shakespeare Commentaries " • 
". . . m the midst of the world," he says, "agitated by love and 
hatred, he [Shakespeare] has placed Friar Laurence, whom ex- 
perience, retirement, and age, have deprived of inclination to 
either. By him, who, as it were, represents the part of the chorus 
m this tragedy, the leading idea of the piece is expressed in all ful- 
ness, an idea that runs throughout the whole, namely, that excess 
m any enjoyment however pure in itself, transforms its sweet into 
bitterness, that devotion to any single feeling however noble be- 
speaks Its ascendency; that this ascendency moves the man and 
woman out of their natural spheres ; that love can only be a com- 
panion to hfe, and cannot fully fill out the life and business of the 
man especially; that, in the full power of its first rising, it is a 
paroxysm of happiness, which according to its nature cannot con- 
tinue m equal strength; that, as the poet says in an image, it is a 
flower that 

" * Being smelt, with that part cheers each part ; 
Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.' 

[Friar Laurence says this in his own person : Shakespeare doesn't 
say it.] 

"These ideas," he goes on to say, "are placed by the poet in 
the hps of the wise Laurence in almost a moralizing manner, with 
gradually increasing emphasis, as if he would provide most cir- 
cumspectly that no doubt should remain of his meaning " 



I4S COMMENTARY ON ROMEO AND JULIET, 

That is, Shakespeare set about driving firmly into our heads, 
and cHnching, this wonderful moral of moderation. If that's the 
purpose of the play, it ought to be entitled Much Ado about 
Nothing. What an ado to enforce so little ! And that little, 
what the whole human race has known since the Flood, and no 
doubt knew before the Flood. 

It is no more the purpose of the play to teach moderation, than 
it is the purpose of a violent rain-storm which beats down the 
farmer's crops, and washes away the garden beds, to teach mod- 
eration ; or than it is the purpose of a freshet on the Ohio River 
which destroys life and property, to teach the importance of mod- 
eration. What professorial nonsense ! The student whose mind 
is set on moral didacticism, and insists on it, should study some 
other author than Shakespeare. The moral platitudes of Tupper's 
Proverbial Philosophy would suit him better. 

Shakespeare nowhere in his works shows himself nervously anx- 
ious that his meaning in the abstract be correctly understood. // 
is not the abstract which he is occupied with. If he did so show 
himself, he would not be the great dramatist he is : for that would 
imply that he was occupied overmuch with the notional, to the 
detriment of the concrete vitality of his art. And it is because the 
real creative energy of the poet was ever dominant, in the compo- 
sition of his Plays, that theories which no man can number have 
been raised, as to his meanings, by minds with a predominant no- 
tional drift. Such minds are not brought into requisite sympathy 
with the creative energy, and therefore occupy themselves with 
picking nice little moral pebbles out of the stream of that creative 
energy. 

(What a lovely moral was that which the laborious student of 
Homer, alluded to somewhere by De Quincey, extracted, after 
much patient investigation, from the Iliad ! " Keep the peace, 
gentlemen, you see what comes of fighting ! ") 

To continue with Gervinus : " Friar Laurence utters these ideas 
of the poet in his first soliloquy, under the simile of the vegetable 
world with which he is occupied, in a manner merely instructive 



COMMENTARY ON ROMEO AND JULIET. 149 

and as if without application ; he expresses them wariiingly, when 
he unites the lovers, at the moment when he assists them, and 
finally he repeats them reprovingly to Romeo in his cell, when he 
sees the latter undoing himself and his own work, and he predicts 
what the end will be." 

"Nought," says the holy man in the first of these passages 
(A. II. Sc. iii. 17-30), 

" Nought so vile that on the earth doth live, 
But to the earth some special good doth give ; 
Nor aught so good, but, strain'd from that fair use, 
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse. 
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, 
And vice sometime's by action dignified. 
Within the infant rind of this weak flower 
Poison hath residence, and medicine power : 
For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part, 
Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart. 
Two such opposed kings encamp them still 
In man as well as herbs, — Grace and rude Will ; 
And where the worser is predominant, 
Full soon the canker death eats up that plant." 

This soliloquy, be it understood, is uttered by the good friar 
before he knows anything of the loves of Romeo and Juliet. It gives 
expression to his prudential, golden-mean philosophy, just such a 
philosophy as such a man would be expected to hold and practise, 
and to advocate. If it could be shown that it was meant by the 
poet to have a direct bearing upon the loves of Romeo and Juliet, 
it could be condemned as an artistic defect, in its being thus brought 
in before the Friar has knowledge of their loves. But Gervinus 
remarks on the sohloquy : " We see plainly, that these two quali- 
ties [meaning " grace " and " rude will "] which make Romeo a 
hero and a slave of love ; in happiness with his Juliet he displays 
his * grace,' in so rich a measure, that he quickly triumphs over a 
being so gifted ; in misfortune he destroys all the charm of these 
gifts through the ^ rude will,' with which Laurence reproaches him. 



I50 COMMENTARY ON ROMEO AND JULIET. 

In the second of the passages pointed out, Romeo, on the threshold 
of his happiness, challenges love-devouring death to do wliat he 
dare, so that he may only call Juliet his ; and in warning reproof, 
Friar Laurence tells him, in a passage which the poet has first in- 
serted in his revision of the play, applying the idea of that straining 
of the good from its fair use (A. II. Sc. vi. 9-14) : 

" ' These violent delights have violent ends 

And in their triumph die, like fire and powder 
Which as they kiss consume. The sweetest honey 
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness 
And in the taste confounds the appetite. 
Therefore, love moderately ; long love doth so.' " 

Now, in the first place, the poet could not have made the friar, 
in accordance with his own character, say other than what he does, 
on this occasion ; and, in the second place, the friar has taken a 
great deal upon himself, in uniting in marriage the representatives 
of two powerful houses, between whom a fierce hostility has long 
raged. He is, of course, very anxious about the possible conse- 
quences, notwithstanding that he hopes, as he expresses it at the 
end of the 3d Scene of the 2d Act, 

*' this alliance may so happy prove 
To turn the household's rancour to pure love." 

His prudential character, accordingly, comes fully to the front. 
He is himself, and not a chorus, not a personified emanation of 
the poet, as Gervinus makes him, contrary to Shakespeare's almost 
unvarying dramatic art. Shakespeare doesn't trouble himself about 
interpreting abstractly his own work to us. Friar Laurence off- 
sets, it is true, the ardency of the lovers, just as he may also be 
said to offset the general violent state of things around him. Shake- 
speare is a great master of contrast, and it is one of the most effec- 
tive agencies of his dramatic art, as it is, indeed, one of every form 
of art — " as fundamentally necessary as symmetry, moderation, or 
congruity." * (See "Shakespeare Key," pp. 50, 51.) 



* Blackie, "On Beauty," p. 149. 



COMMENTARY ON ROMEO AND JULIET. 151 

To continue a moment longer with Gervinus. After the last 
quotation given, "These violent delights have violent end," the 
friar goes on to say (A. III. Sc. iii. 122-134) : 

" Fie, fie, thou shamest thy shape, thy love, thy wit ; 
Which, like a usurer, abound'st in all. 
And usest none in that true use indeed 
Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit : 
Thy noble shape is but a form of wax. 
Digressing from the valour of a man ; 
Thy dear love sworn, but hollow perjury, 
Killing that love which thou hast vowed to cherish ; 
Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love, 
Misshapen in the conduct of them both, 
Like powder in a skilless soldier's flask, 
Is set a-fire by thine own ignorance. 
And thou dismembered with thine own defence." 

"With this significant image," Gervinus continues, "we see 
Romeo subsequently rushing to death, when he procures from the 
apothecary the poison by which the trunk is 

" * discharged of breath 
As violently, as hasty powder fir'd 
Doth hurry, from the fatal cannon's womb.' " 

On this simile, Gervinus remarks : " Thrice has the poet [no, 
not the poet, but the good, moderate Friar Laurence] with this 
same simile, designated the inflaming heart of this love, which too 
quickly causes the paroxysm of happiness to consume itself and to 
vanish, and he could choose no moral aphorism, which with such 
simple expressiveness could have demonstrated the aim of his 
representation, but just this image alone." 

Ulrici, in his " Shakespeare's Dramatic Art : and his relation to 
Calderon and Goethe," after speaking of love as " the noblest and 
most exalted privilege that man enjoys," continues : " But even 
because it is in its nature thus eminently noble and sublime, does 
love become, so soon as it attaches itself to the finiteness of pas- 



152 COMMENTARY ON ROMEO AND JULIET. 

sion and desire, and so long as it remains unpurified from earthly 
dregs, a fatally destructive force, whose triumphs are celebrated 
amid ruin and death. It is even because it is in its true essence 
of a celestial origin, that it hurries along, with demoniacal and 
irresistible energy, all who misuse its godhke gifts, and who, 
plunged in the abyss of self-forgetfulness, lavish all the riches of a 
heavenly endowment on the lowly sphere of their earthly existence. 
It is in such a light that Romeo is presented to us at the very 
opening of the piece. The faculty of loving, which pervades his 
whole being, and which is assigned to him in so eminent a degree, 
instead of being refined and spiritualized by its sexual object and 
passion, becomes merged in passionate yearning and desire. He 
thus becomes the slave of the very power whose master he ought 
to be. Accordingly, at the very opening of the piece, he appears 
carried away by it, as it were, by some malignant and irresistible 
influence, and hurried along at its caprice. In order to throw out 
this caprice in a still stronger light, Shakespeare introduces him to 
us in a dreamy passion for Rosaline. Involuntarily, and as it 
were, mechanically, is he precipitated, out of his fancy for Rosa- 
line, into the deeper and mightier passion for Juliet. Two hearts 
made for each other, combine at first sight, into indissoluble unity ; 
the force of nature, being allowed free course, overcomes at once 
all the barriers of custom and circumstance. As the lightning has 
already struck before a man can say it lightens, so, in their hearts 
a blazing flame has been quickly and irresistibly kindled, whose 
destroying might both feel and suspect without the power or even 
the wish to oppose it. In both there is the same excess of inflam- 
mable matter ; even JuUet possesses the same rich abundance of 
love — the divine gift in its largest measure ; and with her, too, the 
mighty waters all hurry to the same point, and thus, instead of 
diffusing fertihty and blessing, they do but rise above their bed 
to scatter death and desolation around. Both are high-born, 
richly gifted, and noble of nature ; both have earth and heaven 
within their bosoms ; but they pervert their loveliest and noblest 
gifts into sin, corruption, and evil ; they mar their rare excellence 



COMMENTARY ON ROMEO AND JULIET. 153 

by making idols of each other, and fanatically sacrificing all things 
to their idolatry." 

In the next paragraph he characterizes their love as " This pas- 
sionateness — \ki\s fatal vehemence of love," etc. 

Here we have the same general idea as that set forth by Ger- 
vinus, only it is even more strongly put. 

And even Coleridge says : " With Romeo his precipitate change 
of passion, his hasty marriage, and rash death, are all the effects 
of youth." 

The cold and judicial Hallam, in his ^^ Introduction to the 
Literature of Europe," represents Juliet as " a child, whose intoxi- 
cation in loving and being loved whirls away the little reason she 
may have possessed." He further says : " It is however impossi- 
ble, in my opinion, to place her among the great female characters 
of Shakespeare's creation." 

Well, that may be. But Juliet realizes all that the great poet 
aims after, dramatically — a lyric melody of passion, not an orches- 
tral symphony of emotion such as some of his later great plays 
exhibit. 

Further on Hallam says : 

" It seems to have formed part of his [Shakespeare's] concep- 
tion of this youthful and ardent pair that they should talk irra- 
tionally. The extravagance of their fancy, however, not only 
forgets reason, but wastes itself in frigid metaphors and incon- 
gruous conceptions ; the tone of Romeo is that of the most bom- 
bastic commonplace of gallantry, and the young lady differs in 
being only one degree more mad. The voice of virgin love has 
been counterfeited by the authors of many fictions : I know none 
who have thought the style of Juliet would represent it." 

Here the idea is again, that of rashness, lightheadedness, unrea- 
sonableness, and their attendant follies. Hallam shows himself 
here quite unfit to be a judge in such matters. He would no 
doubt have preferred the diplomacy of love-making which we are 
entertained with in some of the many fictions to which he refers. 
Would the play, could the play, possess such a charm for the 



154 COMMENTARY ON ROMEO AND JULIET. 

cultivated world, if these critics are right? Two rash, giddy- 
headed lovers, flinging themselves into destruction — a subject for 
the greatest love poem in the world ! It is preposterous. 

Maginn, in his " Shakespeare Papers," says : " Romeo leaves all 
to the steerage of Heaven, — i.e., to the heady current of his own 
passions ; and he succeeds accordingly." 

He gives as the moral of the play, two lines from Juvenal (Sat. 
X. 365. 366) : 

'* Nullum numen habes, si sit prudentia ; nos te 
Nos facimus, Fortuna, deam, coeloque locamus." * 

Alfred M^zieres, in his "Shakespeare, ses (Euvres et ses Cri- 
tiques," remarks : "The philosophy of the Friar is but the judgment 
7vhich the poet pronounces from the background of the tragedy. 
When the Friar speaks, we seem to hear the reflections which the 
poet is fftaking aloud to himself as the play comes from his crea- 
tive hands. [As if the Poet hadn't anything better to do than 
that !] Under the garb of the monk, Shakespeare communicates 
to us the results of his personal experience, and the conclusions to 
which the spectacle of the world has led him. [What a moral 
observer he must have been !] He was profoundly versed in the 
study of human nature ; he knew its weaknesses, its contradic- 
tions, its impatient desires, its rashness attended by boundless 
hope and followed by utter despair, its misfortunes whether merited 
or self-provoked ; he knew the self-deception man so often prac- 
tises ; all this he knew, and yet the knowledge never lessens his 
indulgence, or his sympathy for his fellow-creatures." What a 
kind, charitable fellow he was ! Here we have the Friar again as 
Chorus, and Shakespeare, not as dramatist, occupied with giving 
life, but as a moralist giving us the results of his personal experi- 
ence, and the conclusions to which the spectacle of the world has 
led him, from a moral point of view ! 



* "Thou hast no deity, O Fortune, if there be prudence ; but thee we make 
a goddess, and place in heaven." 



COMMENTARY ON ROMEO AND JULIET. I 55 

*' It is but natural," says Taine, " that such love should be fol- 
lowed by supreme calamities and fatal resolves. Ophelia becomes 
insane, Juliet kills herself, and that the insanity and the suicide 
are inevitable every one feels." 

Tieck, in " Dramaturgische Blatter " (Vol. I. p. 256, Breslau, 
1826), says : 

"Romeo's temperament is, on the whole, much more gloomy 
than Juliet's ; in the garden-scene his soul lights up, but in good 
fortune as in bad, he is violent and rough." That's just what he 
is not. There are no epithets less appropriate to Romeo than 
violent and rough. "This vigorous manhood which so easily 
oversteps the bounds of mildness and tenderness, harming both 
itself and others, and losing all moderation and restraint when 
enraged, this it is that in real life enkindles such manifold pas- 
sions and suffers so deeply and powerfully. This exuberance of 
life, sooner or later, in one way or another, involves in ruin both 
itself and the object of its idolatry ; and this lesson Friar Lau- 
rence constantly preaches to the rash youth. . . ." Further on 
he says : "The tragic fate Hes in the character of Juliet, and es- 
pecially of Romeo. . . . He must, Juliet must, perish ; the 
necessity lay in their very natures'' 

No, the necessity lay in the circumstances with which they 
were beset. The necessity was objective. 

" I am inclined to think," he adds, " that the role of Friar 
Laurence the Poet wrote for himself ; " etc. 

Mrs. Jameson, in concluding her long article on JuUet, remarks : 

" With all this immense capacity of affection and imagination, 
there is a deficiency of reflective and of 7noral enei'gy arising from 
previous habit and education ; and the action of the drama, while 
it serves to develop the character, appears but its natural and nec- 
essary result. ' Le mystere de I'existence,' said Madame de Stael 
to her daughter, ' c'est le rapport de nos erreurs avec nos peines.' " 

In this passage, as in all the others cited, the calamitous course 
and fatal end of the heroine's love, are attributed to subjective 
causes — to defect of character and impropriety of conduct. The 



156 COMMENTARY ON ROMEO AND JULIET. 

inference, too, may be drawn from most of them, that if the lovers 
had only understood the diplomatic style of love, things might 
have gone better with them. Such criticism degrades the Play 
to a piece of prudential didacticism, of which Friar Laurence is 
the mouth-piece. The dear old man is himself, and lives his 
own life ; and that may be said of all Shakespeare's characters. 
The lovers are themselves and live their own lives. The former 
is not a mere personification of moderation and prudence placed 
beside the latter as personifications of rashness and imprudence, 
in order to bring these qualities into bold relief, and to impress 
us with a sense of what bad things they are, and how dire their 
consequences may be. Shakespeare, it is true, makes the Friar 
condemn the ardency of the lovers, but he condemns it in propria 
persona. That's quite a different thing from saying that the play, 
as a play, is designed to condemn it. 

Bodenstedt, of all the German commentators, comes the nearest, 
I think, to a correct view of the case. In the Introduction to his 
translation of Romeo and Juliet, 1868, he says : 

"The maxims and sentences of Friar Laurence are so general 
that they hardly admit of application to special cases, and least of 
all do they justify the opinion of various commentators that the 
Poet intended in them to bring fully out the leading thoughts of 
this tragedy. ' Passion gives power,' says the Poet, and he makes 
the calm, moderate wisdom of Father Laurence give way to the 
passion of Romeo, not the reverse. Indeed, could we for a mo- 
ment imagine the ardor of the young lovers changed or cooled by 
the persuasive breath of the Friar's lips, our interest in Romeo 
and Juliet would be extinguished instantly. But that interest is 
increased when the Friar gives the benediction of the Church to 
the tie woven by the purest and noblest passion." 

I have dwelt thus long on this one point, because I consider it 
a most important one — the most important, as upon it a true 
estimate and appreciation of the Play, as a whole, depends. A 
true estimate and appreciation of Shakespeare's mode of dra- 
matization depend upon it. The views I have cited, of Gervinus, 



COMMENTARY ON ROMEO AND JULIET. I 57 

Ulrici, and other commentators, in regard to the moral of the 
Tragedy, lead the student to an essential misunderstanding of the 
Play and also of the Shakespearian treatment of passion, in gen- 
eral. Shakespeare is not a moralist, in the small sense of the word ; 
and he hadn't a drop of missionary blood in his veins ; in the 
composition of his Plays, he always had higher business in hand 
than playing the part of a moralist or missionary ; but he exhibits 
everywhere the profoundest moral spirit. 

It cannot, indeed, be said that Shakespeare ever has a direct 
moral purpose. His direct purpose is always a dramatic one. He 
is the dramatist — the dramatist transcendently and exclusively. 
His morals are morals in the flesh, and the interpretation or 
formulation of them, by critics, must vary according to the great 
variety of individual attitudes, of individual modes of thinking — 
of individual modes of feehng. 

Shakespeare in his treatment of passion, of every kind, however 
violent that passion may be, always exhibits it under the condition 
of Eternal Law ! It is in this that the moral proportion which so 
characterizes his Plays, from the earliest to the latest, consists. 
That Eternal Law cannot be run against with impunity. But this 
is exhibited concretely, impHcitly, not explicitly. Shakespeare 
was wholly taken up, in Romeo and JuHet, with the dramatic ex- 
hibition of the passion of pure youthful love. He is the naturalist 
who traces for us its inception, its progress, its final triumph over 
all obstacles ; and finally its regenerating power over those who 
endeavored to obstruct its clear and rapid current. 



158 KING JOHN. 



KING JOHN. 



SHAKESPEARE wrote ten English historical Plays, in eight of 
which the historical connection is preserved ; namely, Richard 
II., Henry IV., Parts i and 2 Henry V., Henry VI., Parts i, 2, 
3, and Richard III., which includes the reigns of Edward IV. 
and Edward V., and ends with the death of Richard, and the 
proclamation of Henry, Earl of Richmond, as king. After Richard 
is slain by Richmond, Lord Stanley says to the latter : 

" Courageous Richmond, well hast thou aquit thee. 
Lo, here, this long-usurped royalty, 
From the dead temples of this bloody wretch, 
Have I pluck'd off, to grace thy brows withal ; 
Wear it, enjoy it, and make much of it." 

With the accession of Richmond, as Henry VII., ended the 
Wars of the Roses. Henry's reign is passed over by the dramatist, 
as wanting, perhaps, in dramatic interest. 

The next, and the last in historical order, is the play of Henry 
VIIL, in the conclusion of which, Cranmer, Archbishop of Can- 
terbury, in a long speech, at the baptism of the Princess Ehzabeth, 
prophesies the prosperity, and happiness, and glory of her reign. 
The play is thus brought down quite as near to the poet's own 
time as was perhaps permissible. 

The break in the series of the historical plays between the 
earliest, King John, and Richard II., is partly suppHed by some 
events of the intervals which are referred to in the play of Henry V. 

King John and Henry VIII . may be regarded, as Schlegel re- 
marks, as the Prologue and the Epilogue to the other eight. King 



KING JOHN. 159 

John strikes the keynote of the whole series, that keynote being, 
nationality. And Shakespeare wrote these historical plays at a 
period in Enghsh history, when the sense of nationality was deeper 
than it had ever been before, or, perhaps, has ever been since ; 
and when the national genius had reached its greatest intensity, as 
is sufficiently shown by the wonderful literary products of the 
period alone. Shakespeare appeared at the most favorable time in 
England's history, at the most favorable time, indeed, in the world's 
history, for the production of a great drama. It is questionable 
whether there will ever again come a time as favorable. 

King John was first printed, so far as is known, in the FoHo of 
1623. It was composed in 1595 or 1596. There was an earher 
play, entitled " The Troublesome Raigne of John King of England, 
with the discovery of King Richard Cordelions base son (vulgarly 
named The Bastard Fawconbridge) : also the death of King John 
at Swinstead Abbey, London, 159 1." 

The "Troublesome Raigne " was reprinted in 161 1, with "writ- 
ten by W. Sh.," on the title-page, and again in 1622, by a different 
bookseller, with " written by W. Shakespeare " on the title-page. 
Its author is not known. Pope supposed it to be the work of 
Rowley ; but there are no grounds for such supposition. When it 
was first printed, in 1591, Shakespeare was 27 years of age, and 
had not yet come into notice. But in 161 1, when the play was 
reprinted, his plays were in great demand, both on the stage and 
in print ; and the bookseller, it may be supposed, in order to help 
the sale, slyly put " written by W. Sh." on the title-page, and the 
bookseller who got out the next edition, in 1622, took advantage 
of this, and filled out the name. 

Dr. Ingleby, in his " Shakespeare, the Man and the Book," Part 
2, p. 190, says that Shakespeare's King John "is the result of 
fiUijig in a skeleto7i taken from the ' Troublesome Reign,' some of 
the infilling being but a recast or revision of the old phraseology." 
This does not give a fair idea of the relation of Shakespeare's 
play to the old play. It is more correct to say that Shakespeare 
went to the old play for his history, instead of going to HoHnshed's 



l60 KING JOHN. 

" Chronicles," whence, it appears, he derived most of his knowledge 
of English and Scottish history. The whole life and spirit of his 
King John was original with himself. 

The old play was written in the service of the Reformation, the 
reign of King John affording abundance of material, when moulded 
by a strong partisan spirit (which the author, whoever he was, 
certainly had), for emphasizing what he regarded as the evils of 
papal rule, and its antagonism to a vital nationality. Its violent 
partisan spirit, though entirely inconsistent with a true artistic 
spirit, and its appeals to the vulgar antagonisms of the ground- 
lings, must have secured for it a great popularity at the time when 
it first appeared. Of this violent partisan spirit there's not a trace 
in Shakespeare's play. 

In the old play, the ransacking of the monasteries by Faulcon- 
bridge is brought dramatically forward, and the scene in which it 
is presented is the most scurrilous in the play. Philip enters lead- 
ing a friar, and ordering him to show where the Abbot's treasure 
lies. The poor friar, after some pathetic entreaties, shows Philip 
the Abbot's chest, 

" That wanteth not a thousand pound 
In silver and in gold." 

Phihp commands, " Break up the coffer. Friar." The friar does 
his bidding, and fair Alice, the nun, is found in the chest, who 
prays Philip to spare the friar, adding that 

" If money be the means of this, 
I know an ancient nun, 
That hath a hoard these seven years, 
Did never see the sun." 

A not very elegant colloquy follows, which ends with Philip's 
ordering the mm to show him to the other chest. 

" Nun. Fair sir, within this press, of plate and money is 
The value of a thousand marks, and other things, by gis ; 
Let us alone, and take it all, 'tis yours, sir, now you know it." 



KING JOHN. l6l 

Philip orders the friar to pick the lock. The result is that 
Friar Laurence is found within. Another not very elegant collo- 
quy follows. The nun cries ^^ Peccavi, parce me'' A friar entreats 
Phihp : 

" Absolve, sir, for charity, 
She would be reconciled. 

Phil. And so I shall: sirs, bind them fast, 
This is their absolution. 
Go hang them up for hurting them,* 
Haste them to execution." 

Then the poor Friar Laurence interposes a speech, interlarded 
with very bad Latin. He concludes : 

" Exaudi me, Domine, sivis me puree 
Dabo pecunia?n, si habeo veniaiji. 
To go and fetch it, I will dispatch it, 
A hundred pounds sterling, for my life's sparing." 

Now, for all this dramatization of the ransacking of the mon- 
asteries of which Fve given the merest outline, Shakespeare sub- 
stituted four lines of stateme?it only. Cardinal Pandulph, the 
Pope's legate, in his speech counselhng the Dauphin to invade 
England, says : 

" The bastard Faulconbridge 
Is now in England, ransacking the church. 
Offending charity." — A. III. Sc. iv. 171-173. 

And in the 2d Scene of the 4th Act, the Bastard enters to King 
John, and, to the King's inquiry, " Now, what says the world to 
your proceedings," rephes, 

" How I have sped among the clergymen. 
The sums I have collected shall express." 



in 



♦For hurting them, i.e., as a protection against hurting them. So 
Chaucer's "Sir Thopas," "an habergeoun for percinge of his herte," i.e., as 
a protection against the piercing of his heart; and in "Piers the Plowman," 
Passus VI. 62, "for colde of my nailles," as a remedy against cold of my 
nails; Passus I. 24, "for myseise," as a remedy against misease or discom- 
fort. 



1 62 KING JOHN. 

One other example must be given of Shakespeare's suppression 
of the anti-Romish spirit, as it's exhibited in the old play. In 
the old play, the repast of the King, in the garden of Swinstead 
abbey, and his poisoning by a monk, with the connivance of his 
abbot, are dramatized. The monk tasting the King's drink, with 
the historic cry of "Wassell," dies, remarking aside, "If the 
inwards of a toad be a compound of any proof — why, so: it 
works." The Bastard stabs the abbot, and the King dies after 
some long and very strongly anti-papal speeches in which he 
prophesies that out of his loins shall spring a kingly branch whose 
arms shall reach unto the gates of Rome, and with his feet tread 
down the strumpet's pride, that sits upon the chair of Babylon. 

There's nothing of all this in Shakespeare's play. The poison- 
ing of the King is simply told by Hubert, to the Bastard in A. V. 
Sc. vi. To the Bastard's inquiry *' What's the news?" Hubert 
replies : 

" The King I fear is poisoned by a monk ; 
I left him almost speechless, and broke out 
To acquaint you with this evil, that you might 
The better arm you to the sudden time, 
Than if you had at leisure known of this." 

In the next scene, in which the King dies, he utters not a word 
against the papacy. 

The fierce partisan spirit of the old play has no place in Shake- 
speare's. Shakespeare's play is filled throughout with the spirit 
of Elizabethan England's defiance to the foreigner and the Pope 
— but to the Pope as a foreign power, rather than on religious 
grounds. That's the point to be observed. It is a national, 
patriotic, not a rehgious spirit, or rather not a rehgion spirit which 
informs his play. He understood too well the true function of 
dramatic art, to make religion, whether Roman Cathohc, or Prot- 
estant, or any other, the informing spirit of his play. 

The speech of Faulconbridge which concludes the play, voices 
the spirit of the whole : 



KING JOHN. 163 

' ' This England never did, nor never shall, 
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror, 
But when it first did help to wound itself. 
Now these her princes are come home again, 
Come the three corners of the world in arms. 
And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue. 
If England to itself do rest but true." 

This speech pronounced on the stage, as it no doubt was, 
within seven or eight years after the destruction of the Spanish 
Armada, must have produced a powerful effect, intense as was 
then the sense of nationality. 

Commentators have gone to King John for proof that Shake- 
speare was a Protestant. It might be shown, by other plays, with 
as much certainty, that he was a good Catholic. But it cannot 
be shown that he was either one or the other. He was too great 
an artist to obtrude his own personal religious belief. One thing 
is quite evident, namely, that he was in spirit a true Christian — 
so true a Christian that he was perfectly tolerant. 

I have said that Shakespeare went to "The Troublesome Raigne " 
for his history, in the composition of King John, and not to Hol- 
inshed's "Chronicles." His play turns on what is entirely unhistori- 
cal ; or, if not entirely unhistorical, on what went for nothing with 
John's barons, namely, the defect of his title to the crown, and 
the exclusion of the rightful heir, his elder brother Geffrey's son, 
Arthur, and the supposed murder of that son, in order to maintain 
unsurped power. 

Shakespeare's opening scenes must always receive special atten- 
tion, in studying the dramatic action of his Plays, as in them the 
ke}mote of the whole action is usually and distinctly struck. 

In the first 43 lines of King John, the entire action of the play 
is presented in germ. 

'•''Enter King John, Queen Elinor, Pembroke, Essex, Salisbury, 
ajid others, with Chatillon. 

K. yohn. Now say, Chatillon, what would France with us? 
Chat. Thus, after greeting, speaks the king of France, 



KING JOHN. 

In my behaviour, to the majesty, 

The borrowM majesty, of England here. 

Eli. A strange beginning ; — borrowed majesty ! 

K. John. Silence, good mother ; hear the embassy. 

Chat. Philip of France, in right and true behalf 
Of thy deceased brother Geffrey's son, 
Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim 
To this fair island, and the territories ; 
To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine : 
Desiring thee to lay aside the sword, 
Which sways usurpingly these several titles ; 
And put the same into young Arthur's hand, 
Thy nephew and right royal sovereign. 

K. John. What follows if we disallow of this ? 

Chat. The proud control of fierce and bloody war, 
To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld. 

K. Joh?t. Here have we war for war and blood for blood, 
Controlment for controlment ; so answer France. 

Chat. Then take my king's defiance from my mouth, 
The farthest limit of my embassy. 

K. John. Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace : 
Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France ; 
For ere thou canst report I will be there. 
The thunder of my cannon shall be heard : 
So, hence ! Be thou the trumpet of our wrath, 
And sullen presage of your own decay. 
An honourable conduct let him have : — 
Pembroke, look to't: Farewell, Chatilion. 

\_Exeu7it Chatillon and Pembroke. 

Eli. What now, my son? have I not ever said, 
How that ambitious Constance would not cease. 
Till she had kindled France and all the world. 
Upon the right and party of her son? 
This might have been prevented, and made whole, 
With very easy arguments of love ; 
Which now the manage of two kingdoms must 
With fearful bloody issue arbitrate. 

K. John. Our strong possession, and our right for us. 

Eli. Your strong possession much more than your right ; 



KING yOHN. 165 

Or else it must go wrong with you and me : 
So much my conscience whispers in your ear ; 
Which none but Heaven, and you, and I shall hear." 

We have seen that the Play on its political side quite ignores the 
facts of history. So, on the personal side, there is an ignoring, to 
a greater or less degree, of the characters, as represented by his- 
tory, of some of the dramatis personae ; and this is especially so in 
the case of Constance and Arthur, who must be estimated inde- 
pendently of history, and almost as purely fictitious. We must 
not inquire of history what manner of woman Constance was — we 
must consider exclusively what she is in the play. And the same 
may be said of Arthur. Again, as I read the play, I see a purpose 
throughout to intensify the injustice, and crime, and baseness of 
John's usurpation, through the characters given to Constance and 
Arthur. In the First Scene, 11. 31-34, Elinor says of Constance : 

" What now, my son ? have I not ever said 
How that ambitious Constance would not cease, 
Till she had kindled France and all the world, 
Upon the right and party of her son ? "' 

And in A. II. Sc. i. 117, when King John says to King Philip of 
France, 

" Alack ! thou dost usurp authority," 

and Philip replies, 

" Excuse, it is to beat usurping down," 
Elinor interposes, 

" Who is it thou dost call usurper, France ?" 
To which question Constance replies, 

" Let fne make answer, — thy usurping son." 

And then Elinor flings at her charges of adultery and guilty 
ambition, which she knows to be false : 

" Out, insolent ! thy bastard shall be king, 
That thou mayst be a queen and check the world ! " . 



1 66 KING JOHN. 

These words have, I think, misled many commentators ; and 
they have made ambition the ruUng motive of Constance. 

It is not safe to take the opinions which hostile characters in 
Shakespeare's Plays, and sometimes characters which are not hos- 
tile, are made to express of each other, as opinions which must go 
for anything in our estimation of the characters ; quite as unsafe 
as it sometimes is in real life to judge of people by what we hear 
others say of them. In Shakespeare's Plays, what characters say 
must often be taken as representing themselves rather than others. 
This is especially true in the case of Elinor. We don't learn what 
others are from what she says of them ; we certainly don't learn 
what manner of woman Constance really is ; but we learn a great 
deal of what she is. 

It will be shown in the chapters on the tragedy of Macbeth, 
that even what Lady Macbeth says of her husband, in the speech 
she utters, after reading his letter informing her of his having been 
saluted by the witches, "Hail, king that shalt be," indicates a 
wrong estimate of him, and that that wrong estimate she herself is 
made aware of, further on in the play. She gets new knowledge 
of him after he has " done the deed " and become King. But 
upon this speech of Lady Macbeth, much false interpretation of 
Macbeth's character has been based ; and much false interpreta- 
tion has been reflected from it upon herself. But I do not mean, 
of course, to say that we must never take the opinions of other 
characters into our estimates of particular characters ; for Shake- 
speare often makes the speeches of other characters reveal a char- 
acter as distinctly as it is revealed by what that character says and 
does in his or her own person. Such speeches emphasize it, so 
to speak. This is especially the case in The Winter's Tale, 
where our estimation of the noble Hermione is deepened by the 
opinions expressed of her by all about the Court. What I would 
say, is, that we must be careful, and not make hasty inferences 
from the speeches of other characters, in regard to any particular 
character, and must test the reliableness of those speeches by 
what that particular character is made to say and do. 



KING JOHN. 167 

To continue this digression a little further : when we apply 
this rule to Macbeth, I think we must come to the conclusion, 
after tracing his career from beginning to end, that he was not, as 
Lady Macbeth represents him, " too full o' the milk of human 
kindness to catch the nearest way " ; that he was not " without 
the illness which should attend ambition " ; that what he "would 
highly," he would not " holily," if it were necessary ; that he 
would "play false," as well as "wrongly win." And that Lady 
Macbeth discovered her mistake, in regard to the real character 
of her husband, is afterwards made as clear as her own words and 
acts can make it ; and, in consequence of that discovery, remorse, 
which had been held in abeyance while her ambition, which was 
chiefly for him (as I shall show), was predominant, got full sway, 
and she sank under it. Shakespeare knew that " Nemo repente 
fuit turpissimus,'" and he knew, too, that wives sometimes over- 
estimate and sometimes underestimate, their husbands, just as 
they do now. 

No careful reader of the play of King John, will, I am assured, 
take Elinor's accusations as at all representing the poet's dramatic 
purpose in Constance. The old Elinor is the political genius and 
guide of her son John, "an Ate, stirring him to blood and strife," 
as Chatillon describes her in the play (A. IL Sc. i. 6^,), and we must 
not look for the truth from her, in regard to Constance, whom she 
charges with seeking the throne for her son, only with the ambi- 
tious design of ruling herself and kindling all the world. But 
what Constance says of Ehnor (A. IL S. i. 174-190), we can take 
as the truth in regard to the old queen mother. 

What Ulrici says of Constance and Arthur is wide of the mark. 
I don't find in this German critic much evidence of insight into 
Shakespeare's dramatic motives, though he has ranked high as a 
Shakespearian critic. This is what he says, and all that he says : 

"As to the fortunes of Constance and Arthur, although they 
are primarily but an episode in the Ufe and character of John 
[that is not correct, for they constitute an inseparable part of the 
main action], yet it is with great significance that they appear to 



1 68 KING JOHN. 

be thus interwoven with the history of the state. The instruction 
they furnish forms a pendant to the general lesson of the piece ; 
for they teach us [Ulrici's interest is always directed to the didactic, 
in a play, rather than to the dramatic action], for they teach us 
that nothing in history more invariably meets its due punishment 
than weakness and passion — those hereditary failings of the female 
character. Women ought not to interfere in history, for history 
demands action, and for that they are constitutionally disqualified." 

It's a pity Ulrici could not have had a John Ruskin to teach 
him what he sets forth, somewhat strongly, to be sure, in his 
" Sesame and LiUes," in regard to Shakespeare's heroines. Ulrici 
goes on : 

"The haste and impatience with which Constance labors to 
establish her son's rights . . . justly involves him as well as herself 
in ruin. Arthur, therefore, although preserved by the compassion 
of Hubert, must nevertheless perish. Had his mother but had the 
prudence to wait until he could himself have asserted his own 
rights by his own arm, and when alone he could have possessed a 
perfect title, he could have gained for himself and her what law- 
fully belonged to them." 

Constance labors, he says, to establish her son's rights. But the 
play throughout assumes that those rights a7'e estabhshed ; and 
the point upon which the whole play turns is, that her son has 
been unjustly deprived of them. In history, Arthur's rights were > 
not established, and John was not regarded by his disaffected 
barons in the light of a usurper, but of a tyrant. But the critic 
of Shakespeare's play has nothing to do with authentic history; 
he has to do with the play, in itself considered. What are the 
poet's postulates and assumptions, is the question to be asked. 
Ulrici repeats the same mistake further on in the passage I've 
quoted : " If Arthur's mother had had the good sense to wait 
until he could himself have asserted his own rights by his own arm, 
and whefi alone he could have possessed a perfect title, ^^ etc. 

Such criticism as that is on a level with Gustav Riimelin's, on 
Romeo and Juliet, in his " Shakespearestudien," which I may cite 



KING JOHN. i5q 

here as, along with Ulrici's on King John, a good specimen of a 
species of criticism which interests itself in everything in a play 
of Shakespeare, except its own independent dramatic vitality. 

Rumelin says : " Why does not Juhet simply confess that she is 
married already, and confront the consequences with the heroism 
of her love ? Why does she not flee ? She comes and goes un- 
hindered, and even the Friar's plan accomplished no more than 
that instead of starting for Mantua from her father's house, she 
would have to start from the neighboring churchyard. Why does 
she not feign sickness? Why is not Paris induced to withdraw by 
being informed that Juliet is already wedded to another ? Why 
does not the pious Father fall back upon the obvious excuse that 
as a Christian priest he would not marry a woman while her first 
husband was still living?" etc., etc. 

Verily, there is not evident in such criticism, " that God-given 
power vouchsafed to us Germans alone before all other nations," 
to use Professor Lemcke's expression, in his boastful assertion of 
the superiority of German Shakespearian criticism to all others in 
the world. 

These, it is true, are not, by any means, fair specimens of Ger- 
man criticism. Yet, we must remember, that Ulrici has ranked 
high among Shakespearian critics in Germany, and that his " Ueber 
Shakespeare's dramatische Kunst u. sein Verhaltniss zu Calderon 
u. Goethe," first published in Halle, in 1839, was held, and is still 
held, in high estimation. 

Of Constance, Gervinus says : " Ambition spurred by maternal 
love, maternal love goaded by ambition and womanly vanity, these 
form the distinguishing features of this character, features out of 
which, from the adversity of fate, that raging passion is developed, 
which at last shatters the soul and body of the frail woman." 
Further on he speaks of " her coarse outbursts against Ehnor " ; 
and represents her as " the female counterpart to Richard IL, who, 
imperious in prosperity, was speedily lost in adversity"; "she 
plays with her sorrow in witty words and similes " ; " the violent- 
natured woman bursts forth with scornful hatred against Austria, 
after he has become faithless." 



I/O KING JOHN. 

Is this the Constance as she is understood by the unphilosophi- 
cal but sympathetic reader, with no critical theories to maintain? 
I think not. 

The play, let me repeat, turns upon the usurpation of John and 
the consequent murder of Arthur, the rightful heir. The usurpa- 
tion is assumed — the vahdity of Arthur's title to the crown is 
assumed, and this assumption on the part of the dramatist must 
not be lost sight of, authentic history to the contrary notwithstand- 
ing. It cannot then be said that Constance is ambitious for the 
crown, either for her son's sake or for her own sake. What she 
claims and contends for, and agonizes for, is her son's rights, of 
which he has been basely deprived. Even the queen mother, 
Elinor, is made, as we have seen, to express to John her sense 
of the usurpation, in the opening scene, after Chatillon, the am- 
bassador from PhiHp of France, has gone from the royal presence. 
What she afterwards says to Constance should go for nothing in 
the case. She says what she does as a matter of course. 

Faulconbridge adheres firmly to John throughout the play ; but 
he is made to reveal, very distinctly, in his speeches, his secret 
sense of the injustice done to Arthur. He knows that John is a 
usurper ; he knows that he is compounded of baseness, injustice, 
and treachery ; but so long as he has possession of the throne, 
whether that possession be just or unjust, he is to him the imper- 
sonation of the state, to whom loyalty is due. 

Shakespeare, it is evident, made Faulconbridge voice the feel- 
ings of the English people, in his own time, against foreign inter- 
ference in church and state. The speeches in which he gives 
expression to the " self-dependent life and self-sufficing strength 
inherent in the nation," must have been particularly agreeable to 
the audiences at the Globe Theatre, the attempt made but seven 
or eight years before, by the then richest and mightiest of Euro- 
pean powers, to invade England and impose upon her the Roman 
CathoUc rehgion, having resulted in one of the most disastrous 
defeats in all history. 

To return to Constance and Arthur : Constance appears only in 



KING JOHN. 171 

A. II. Sc. i. and A. III. Sc. i. and iv. Arthur appears in A. II. Sc. 
i., A. III. Sc. i., ii., and iii., A. IV. Sc. i. and iii. These scenes 
evidence with an entire conclusiveness, I think, that Shakespeare's 
dramatic purpose in Constance was to exhibit outraged mater- 
nal affection, independently of any ambition on her part. For 
her to show personal ambition for the crown, would mar the 
artistic symmetry and the whole moral tone of the play. We 
shall see that there is not a single speech of hers which indicates 
directly or by implication, any personal ambition. She is " op- 
pressed with wrongs " done to her beloved Arthur, whom the 
poet, in the service of his art, represents as possessing all those- 
charms of person and all those qualities of mind and heart which 
intensify a mother's affection and devotion. 

In comparing Shakespeare's Arthur with the Arthur of the old 
play, we can easily see the dramatic purpose which determined 
the poet in making him what he does. And Augustine Skottowe 
well remarks : " The maternal distress of Constance, in the old 
play, is clamorous and passionate, vindictive and contumeUous. 
The hand of Shakespeare tempered her rage into vehemence, 
attuned her clamour to eloquence, and modulated her coarse 
vindictiveness into a deep sense of gross injuries and unde- 
served misfortunes." 

From the accounts we have of Mrs. Siddons's impersonation of 
Constance, it appears that she made strong-willed ambition her 
ruling motive, rather than maternal affection. The impersona- 
tion, in the last generation, by Miss Helen Faucit, now Lady 
Martin, the wife of Sir Theodore Martin, the biographer of the 
Prince Consort, appears to have been a truer one than that of 
Mrs. Siddons. From the dramatic criticism of the time (1843 ^^^ 
later) we learn that maternal tenderness and affection alone mo- 
tived and informed her impersonation. 

The situation in A. III. Sc. i., which has been led up to by the 
marriage of the Dauphin and Blanch, is, perhaps, unsurpassed as 
a dramatic situation, in all Shakespeare. To Constance, when, 
deserted and betrayed, she stands alone in her despair, amid her 



172 KING JOHN. 

false friends and her ruthless enemies, Mrs. Jameson applies, most 
appropriately, the image of the mother eagle, wounded and bleed- 
ing to death, yet stretched over her young in an attitude of de- 
fiance, while all the baser birds of prey are clamoring around her 
eyrie. The noble Bastard, whose heart seems to be always in the 
right place, feels deeply the injustice of the act of the two kings : 

" Mad world ! mad kings ! mad composition ! 
John, to stop Arthur's title in the whole, 
Hath willingly departed with a part. 
And France, whose armour conscience buckled on, 
Whom zeal and charity brought to the field 
As God's own soldier, rounded * in the ear 
With that same purpose-changer, that sly devil, 
That broker, that still breaks the pate of faith. 
That daily break-vow, he that wins of all, 
Of kings, of beggars, old men, young men, maids, . . . 
That smooth-faced gentleman, tickling Commodity, 
Commodity, f the bias of the world," etc. 

There's a sort of reflex action induced in his mind, which causes 
him to slander himself. After representing self-interest as the bias 
of the world, he continues : 

*' And why rail I on this Commodity ? 
But for because he hath not woo'd me yet ; 
*#*♦***♦ 
Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail 
And say there is no sin but to be rich ; 
And being rich, my virtue then shall be 
To say there is no vice but beggary. 
Since kings break faith upon Commodity, 
Gain be my lord, for I will worship thee." 

All this is pure self-slander, as his subsequent disinterested and 
magnanimous acts and words show. 



whispered. f Profit, self-interest. 



KING JOHN. 173 

The league entered into by the two kings (first proposed by the 
besieged citizens of Angiers), A. 11. Sc. i., is severed by Pandulph, 
the Pope's legate, who demands of John, why, against the authority 
of the Church, he keeps Stephen Langton, chosen archbishop of 
Canterbury, from that holy see. To this demand John returns a 
defiant answer (A. III. Sc. i. 147-160). The legate, thereupon, by 
the power that he has, declares him '*' curs'd and excommunicate," 
and commands Philip, on peril of a curse, to let go the hand of 
the arch-heretic, and raise the power of France upon his head, un- 
less he submit himself to Rome. The consequence is, that Phihp, 
after begging the Cardinal, under the circumstances, to devise 
some other means, and after being entreated by Constance, Austria, 
and Lewis, to submit to the Cardinal, and by Elinor and Blanch, 
to stand fast, falls off from John (though he is manifestly not con- 
vinced by the argument of the legate that it is his duty to do so), 
and hostilities are resumed. The French forces are worsted ; they 
lose Angiers, and Arthur is taken prisoner by John, and conveyed 
to England. This gives a turn to, and complicates, things at home 
which will prove fatal to John. He is now forced, by circum- 
stances resulting from the capture of Arthur, to play a losing game 
within his own kingdom. His fears as to the young and interest- 
ing captive, whose misfortune wins the sympathies of the courtiers 
and the people, drive him to measures for his own safety which 
deprive him of all chance of safety. He passes, irresistibly, into 
the power of an avenging fate. The dramatic situation, at this 
stage of the play, is in Shakespeare's best tragic manner. The 
moral baseness of John, which seals his doom, may be said 
to be gathered up, and exhibited in its extreme intensity, in the 
scene with Hubert, the 3d of the 3d Act, in which he intimates to 
Hubert his wish to have the little prince put out of the way : and 
in the 2d Scene of the 4th Act, where he accuses the aptness of 
the instrument as the cause of the suggestion. I would call special 
attention to the last 19 verses of John's long speech (A. HI. Sc. iii. 
30-50), beginning, " If the midnight bell." The thought keeps 
on the wing through all these 19 verses. There is a moral signifi- 



174 KING JOHN. 

cance in the suspended construction of the language. The mind 
of the dastard king hovers over the subject of the ungodly act and 
dares not alight upon it ; and the verse, in its uncadenced move- 
ment, admirably registers the speaker's state of mind : 

** If the midnight bell 
Did, with his iron tongue and brazen mouth, 
Sound on into the drowsy race of night ; 
If this same were a church-yard where we stand, 
And thou possessed with a thousand wrongs. 
Or if that surly spirit, melancholy, 
Had bak'd thy blood and made it heavy, thick, 
Which else runs tickling up and down the veins, 
Making that idiot, laughter, keep men's eyes, 
And strain their cheeks to idle merriment, 
A passion hateful to my purposes, 
Or if that thou could see me without eyes, 
Hear me without thine ears, and make reply 
Without a tongue, using conceit alone, 
Without eyes, ears, and harmful sound of words ; 
Then, in despite of brooded watchful day, 
I would into thy bosom pour my thoughts ; 
But, ah, I will not ! yet I love thee well ; 
And, by my troth, I think thou lov'st me well." 

The loveliness of Arthur is the most fully exhibited in the scene 
with Hubert, the ist of the 4th Act, where he entreats Hubert to 
spare his eyes. The pathos of the situation is pushed to the verge 
of the painful. The highest art was demanded here to keep the 
treatment of the subject within the domain of the beautiful. And 
it is so kept. 

I need not trace the dramatic action further. From the point 
reached, to the end, there are no new movements. King John is 
now in a current which he cannot stem, and will be swept help- 
lessly along to the bitter end. 

Shakespeare is always true to the fatality of overmastering pas- 
sion of every kind. To the extent that his characters forfeit the 



KING JOHN. 



175 



power of self-assertion, do they become subject to fate, and are 
swept along by circumstances. This, of course, is a universal, an 
obvious, a self-evident, truth ; but it is a truth which the inferior 
sort of dramatists do not always observe, in their treatment of 
great passions, and their work is, in consequence, wanting in 
moral proportion. 

The dramatists of the Restoration period do not observe it • 
and whatever mechanical symmetry they attain to, in their plays, 
true moral proportion is wanting. The dramatic criticism of that 
period, Rymer's, for example, shows that the moral proportion of 
Shakespeare's plays was but little recognized. This is shown, too, 
by the rifacimenti of some of his plays which were perpetrated 
by Dryden, Davenant, Tate, and others. Tate's Lear is a signal 
example. Poetic justice meant something other with these dra- 
matic carpenters, than the justly poetic. 



76 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 



MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 



MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING appeared for the first 
time, in 4to, in 1600, with the following title: "Much 
adoe about Nothing. As it hath been sundrie times pubhkely 
acted by the right honourable, the Lord Chamberlaine his ser- 
uants. Written by William Shakespeare. London. Printed by 
V. S. for Andrew Wise, and William Aspley. 1600." 

The word "nothing" appears to have been pronounced in 
Shakespeare's day, "noting"; and in A. II. Sc. iii. 57, there's a 
play on the two words. Balthasar says : 

" Note this before my notes ; 
There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting." 

To which Don Pedro rephes : 

*' Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks ; 
Note, notes, forsooth, and nothing." 

The last word was changed by Theobald to " noting." 
Richard Grant White sees the same pun in the title of the play. 
"The play is Much Ado about Nothing," he says, " only in a very 
vague and general sense, but Much Ado about Noting in one es- 
pecially apt and descriptive ; for the much ado is produced entirely 
by noting. It begins with the noting of the Prince and Claudio, 
first by Antonio's man, and then by Borachio, who reveals their 
confidence to John ; it goes on with Benedick noting the Prince, 
Leonato, and Claudio, in the garden, and again with Beatrice 
noting Margaret and Ursula in the same place ; the incident upon 
which its action turns is the noting of Borachio's interview with 



MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 



177 



Margaret by the Prince and Claudio ; and, finally, the incident 
which reveals the plot is the noting of Borachio and Conrade by 
the Watch." This interpretation is quite ingenious, if nothing 
more can be said of it. It should be added, that the w/>-noting 
of Benedick by Beatrice, and of Beatrice by Benedick, is the occa- 
sion of the predominant comic feature of the play. The comedy, 
indeed, turns upon this ;;«V-noting. 

Shakespeare has, evidendy, repeated this pun in The Winter's 
Tale, A. IV. Sc. iv. 626. Autolycus, speaking of the easy success 
of his knavery, says, " I could have filed keys off that hung in 
chains : no hearing, no feeling, but my sir's song, and admiring the 
nothing of it." 

But see EUis's "Early EngHsh Pronunciation," pp. 966-973, 
inclusive, where Richard Grant White's Elizabethan Pronun- 
ciation is presented. See especially on p. 971, ist col, Ellis's 
opinion of the pun which White sees in the title of Much Ado 
about Nothing. The objections advanced by Ellis are not conclu- 
sive, especially the following : " Mr. White seeks to establish this 
{i.e., the pun in the title of the play] by a wonderfully prosaic 
summary of instances, all the while forgetting the antithesis of 
much and nothing, on which the title is founded, with an allusion 
to the great confusion occasioned by a slight mistake — of Ursula 
for Hero — which was a mere nothing in itself. The Germans in 
translating it, Viel Ldrm U7n Nichts, certainly never felt Mr. 
White's difficulty." 

The last sentence, especially, doesn't strike me as particularly 
forcible. 

The 1 600 Much Ado about Nothing is one of the most correctly 
printed of the quarto editions of the Plays. There is no other 
quarto edition, so far as is known, previous to the publication of 
the First Folio, 1623. The text of the play, in the FoUo, appears 
to have been taken from the Quarto. Some stage directions of 
interest occur first in the FoHo, but as regards the text, where the 
Folio differs from the Quarto, it differs, according to the opinion 
of the " Cambridge " editors, almost always for the worse. Those 



178 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 

editors, however, have a pecuUar partiality for the quarto editions. 
But the differences are but shght, and the text of the play has, 
accordingly, presented but little difficulty to editors. O si sic 
omnes ! 

The date of composition is put, with almost absolute certainty, 
in 1599, when Shakespeare was 35 years old. 

The play appears to have been a great favorite in Shakespeare's 
own day. Leonard Digges (the same who wrote the verses pre- 
fixed to the First Foho), in his verses prefixed to the 1640 edition 
of Shakespeare's Poems, mentions this play, along with three or 
four others, as especially attractive to the frequenters of the 
theatre. 

"So have I seene, when Caesar would appeare, 
And on the Stage at halfe-sword parley were 
Brutus and Cassius : oh how the Audience 
Were ravish'd, with what wonder they went thence, 
When some new day they would not brooke a line 
Of tedious (though well laboured) Catiline; * 
Sejanus * too was irkesome, they priz'de more 
Honest /ago, or the jealous Moore. 
And though the Fox * and subtill Alchimist,* 
Long intermitted, could not quite be mist, 
Though these have sham'd all the Ancients, and might raise 
Their Authours merit with a crowne of Bayes, 
Yet these sometimes, even at a friends desire 
Acted, have scarce defraid the Seacole fire 
And doore-keepers : when let but Falstaffe come, 
Hall, Poines, the rest, you scarce shall have a roome, 
All is so pestered : f let but Beatrice 
And Benedicke be seene, loe in a trice 
The Cockpit, Galleries, Boxes, all are full." 

This is interesting contemporary testimony to the popularity of 
the play, and also to that of other plays of Shakespeare over Ben 
Jonson's best plays. 



* Plays by Ben Jonson. f jammed. 



MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 1 79 

When we turn to the old stories upon which Shakespeare based 
his plays, we get, perhaps, a deeper impression of his essential 
originality than we should were the plots wholly his own, what- 
ever might be their merits as plots. We are brought, in this way, 
to a deeper sense of the workings of the inner spirit which sub- 
jected all its appropriations to its own creative purpose. We see 
that the work grew from what the workman had within himself, 
and not merely from following what others had done before him. 
We see that the old story has been less worked into, than em- 
ployed as the scaffolding of, his dramatic structure. A signal 
illustration of this is afforded by The Winter's Tale. Any one who 
has read this play with an adequate appreciation of its dramatic 
merits, must, on turning to the novel on which it was founded 
(" Pandosto, or the Triumph of Time," otherwise called " Doras- 
tus and Fawnia," by Robert Greene), be struck with the admirable 
manner in which the poet has converted materials supplied by 
another to his own higher purposes. The bare outUne, even, of 
the story, he does not follow very closely. We may say that he 
follows it where the propulsion of his own thought and feeling 
bears him along in his work parallel with the original thread ; but 
the same propulsion also carries him away from it, — an evidence 
that his work has its own independent principle of movement. 
The old story is rather the exciting cause of what afterwards fol- 
lows out its own path. 

The Hfe and the main interest of Much Ado about Nothing 
are due to characters which, so far as we know, were entirely orig- 
inal with Shakespeare, namely, Benedick and Beatrice, Dogberry 
and Verges. The other characters have prototypes in the original 
story, which is found under various forms, the earliest being the 
tale of Ariodante and Ginevra, in the " Orlando Furioso " of 
Ariosto. 

Sir John Harrington's translation of Ariosto appeared in 1591, 
but no influence of this version can be traced in the Play. A sim- 
ilar tale occurs in Spenser's " Faerie Queene," Book II. Canto IV. 
Shakespeare's original appears to have been the 2 2d novel of 



l80 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 

Bandello, which had been translated into French by Belleforest, 
in his " Histoires Tragiques/' and possibly into English. Whether 
Shakespeare was indebted mediately or immediately to Bandello 
cannot with certainty be determined. At any rate, the portion of 
Shakespeare's plot pertaining to Claudio and Hero most resembles 
the form of the story as told by Bandello, the scene of which, as 
is that of the Play, is laid in Messina ; the father of the slandered 
maiden is named Lionato, and the friend of her lover, Don Piero, 
or Pedro. 

The characters of the play who constitute its main charm are, 
of course. Benedick and Beatrice. And it is upon a correct 
understanding of the relations of these two characters to each 
other, that an appreciation of the comedy essentially depends. 
They are faintly sketched in Love's Labor's Lost, Shakespeare's 
first genuine play. In comparing, or rather contrasting, the two 
pairs of lovers, Berowne and Rosaline, and Benedick and Beatrice, 
we can see Shakespeare's growth, and the nature of that growth, 
during the interval between the composition of Love's Labor's 
Lost and the composition of Much Ado about Nothing. 

Beatrice has a better and deeper nature than some of her critics 
have allowed her. While she is, as Furnivall characterizes her, 
"The sauciest, most piquant, sparkling, madcap girl that Shake- 
speare ever drew," she is also, as he adds, "a loving, deep-natured, 
true woman too." 

The poet Campbell slanderously characterizes her as " an odious 
woman," " a disagreeable female character," "a tartar by Shake- 
speare's own showing," etc. He adds : " I once knew such a pair 
[as Benedick and Beatrice] ; the lady was a perfect Beatrice ; 
she railed hypocritically at wedlock before her marriage, and with 
bitter sincerity after it. She and her Benedick now live apart, but 
with entire reciprocity of sentiments, each devoutly wishing that 
the other may soon pass into a better world." He contrasts her, 
to her great disadvantage, with Rosalind, in As You Like It. Ver- 
planck attributes Campbell's unjust estimate of Beatrice to acci- 
dental personal associations. And this may have been the fact. 



MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. l8l 

There must have been something back of these severe strictures 
upon Beatrice, in the poet's own matrimonial experience. Or, 
perhaps, the fastidious temperament which he appears to have 
possessed made him condemn anything outre in the female char- 
acter; so that a saucy, piquant, sparkling, madcap girl, to use 
Furnivall's epithets, whatever might be her more substantial qual- 
ities, appeared to him, according to his standard of the proprie- 
ties, "A disagreeable female character," "a tartar," "an odious 
woman." 

Mrs. Jameson, along with much that is justly said, says also cer- 
tain things of Beatrice, which do her, I think, great injustice. In 
her temper, she says, there's a slight infusion of the termagant. 
She speaks of " her scornful airs," " her assumption of superiority." 
Her wit she thinks " less good-humored than that of Benedick." 
" She appears in a less amiable light than her lover " ; " with Bea- 
trice temper has still the mastery." Speaking of her relations with 
her cousin, Hero, she says, " Beatrice asserts the rule of a master 
spirit." That is true enough, if it is not understood to mean that 
she is domineering. Again, speaking of Hero, she says, "When 
she has Beatrice at an advantage, she repays her with interest, in 
the severe, but most animated and elegant picture she draws of 
her cousin's imperious character,'" etc. This is certainly an entire 
misconception on the part of Mrs. Jameson, and does injustice 
also to Hero. The allusion is to the scene where Hero speaks 
with Ursula, in Leonato's garden, to be overheard by Beatrice. 
But the gentle, negative Hero certainly doesn't mean to pay her 
back. That's not her purpose at all, as any one can easily see who 
reads this scene. Again : " A haughty, excitable, and violent tem- 
per is another of the characteristics of Beatrice, but there is more 
of impulse than of passion in her vehemence." 

Mrs. Jameson recognizes the good and even noble qualities of 
Beatrice, but the expressions I have quoted, and others, which 
vein the entire surface of her essay, reveal, I think, a feeling on 
the part of the authoress, that the good qualities of Beatrice are so 



1 82 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 

offset by bad ones, that the former are as Hkely to be overbalanced 
by the latter, as the latter by the former. 

Neither Campbell nor Mrs. Jameson can prophesy much matri- 
monial happiness for Benedick and Beatrice. Mrs. Jameson 
thinks they may be tolerably happy, but Campbell is quite certain 
that Beatrice will provoke her husband to give her much and just 
conjugal castigation. Furnivall has a different, and I think, truer 
opinion of what the married life of such a pair would be. " Fancy," 
he says, " Beatrice playing with her baby, and her husband looking 
on ! Never child 'ud have had such fun since the creation of the 
world." 

In the opening scene of the Play, the attitudes of Benedick and 
Beatrice towards each other are presented ; and it is plain to see 
to what those attitudes are due — namely, a mutual chaffing, and, 
on the part of Benedick, a depreciation of womankind which is 
irritating to Beatrice and provokes her to the defence of her sex. 
It will be observed that she exhibits throughout the play great sen- 
sitiveness in regard to the honor of her sex. 

From a speech of Leonato to the messenger in the opening 
scene, we learn that Benedick and Beatrice had had wit combats 
previous to his going to the wars : " You must not, sir, mistake my 
niece : there is a kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and 
her; they never meet but there is a skirmish of wit between 
them." The messenger shows a high admiration of Benedick; 
and her inquiries in regard to him, apparently so derisive, are 
really designed to elicit praises of Benedick which are secretly 
gratifying to her. When he enters, with Don Pedro, Don John, 
and Claudio, he begins at once his irritating raillery. To Don 
Pedro's remark to Leonato, " I think this is your daughter," 
Leonato replies, " Her mother has many times told me so." And 
then Benedick interposes, addressing Leonato, "Were you in 
doubt, sir, that you asked her? Leon. Signior Benedick, no; 
for then were you a child. D. Pedro. You have it full. Bene- 
dick [i.e., you get as good as you gave] : we may guess by this 
what you are, being a man. Truly, the lady fathers herself : . . . 



MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 



183 



Bene. If Signior Leonato be her father, she would not have his 
head on her shoulders for all Messina, as like him as she is." 
This speech is sufficient, Beatrice knowing the general deprecia- 
tion of woman which is back of it, to cause her to retort : " I 
wonder that you will still [i.e., ever] be talking, Signior Benedick ; 
nobody marks you. Bene. What, my dear Lady Disdain ! are 
you yet living?" They are both now well started in "a skirmish 
of wit," in which Beatrice, as is usual, gets the best of it. To 
Benedick's remark, " It is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you 
excepted : and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a 
hard heart ; for truly, I love none," she replies, " A dear happiness 
to women : they would else have been troubled with a pernicious 
suitor. ... I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man 
swear he loves me." This speech may be easily misunderstood. 
It has been misunderstood by some critics. It musn't be taken 
in its absolute meaning, but entirely as provoked by the speech of 
Benedick. The sensitive, high-strung gid resents his professed 
indifference to women, and her resentment is really intensified by 
the secret admiration she cherishes for him. In getting the bet- 
ter of him, in his own habitual line of raillery, she wounds his self- 
esteem, as is shown by what he says of her to Claudio, when all 
the others go out. But we feel as we do in the case of Beatrice, 
that what he says is emphasized by the half-conscious admiration 
he has of her. In reply to Claudio's praises of Hero, in which he 
pronounces her as, in his eye, the sweetest lady that he ever 
looked on, Benedick says : '' I can see yet without spectacles and 
I see no such matter : there's her cousin, and she were not pos- 
sessed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty as the first of 
May does the last of December." Having spoken of her as pos- 
sessed with a fury, he can, without incurring the suspicion of any 
extended admiration, praise her beauty as far surpassing Hero's ; 
but the reader, or the spectator, is assured that his admiration 
goes beyond her personal charms. 

In the masquerade scene, where the two next meet. Benedick 
is cut to the quick, and, in spite of their secret interest in each 



1 84 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 

Other, a barrier is raised between them which, we shall see, has 
to be removed by the kind interposition of their common friends. 
There are two courtships going on, in the masquerade scene, Don 
Pedro's, of Hero, in behalf of Claudio, who hasn't the courage to 
court Hero in his own person, and Balthazar's, of Margaret. The 
conversation is a mixed one, of course. We have only bits of 
what passes between the different pairs. First we have a bit of 
Don Pedro's talk with Hero ; then, of Balthazar's, with Margaret ; 
then of Ursula's, with Antonio ; and then what passes between 
Benedick and Beatrice. ^^ Beat. Will you not tell me who told you 
so? Bene. No, you shall pardon me. Beat. Nor will you not 
tell me who you are ? Bene. Not now. Beat. That I was dis- 
dainful, and that I had my good wit out of the ' Hundred 
Merry Tales ; ' — well, this was Signior Benedick that said so. 
Bene. What's he? Beat. I am sure you know him well enough. 
Bene. Not I, believe me. Beat. Did he never make you 
laugh? Bene. I pray you, what is he? Beat. Why, he is the 
prince's jester ; a very dull fool ; only his gift is in devising impos- 
sible slanders : none but hbertines delight in him ; and the com- 
mendation is not in his wit but in his villainy ; for he both pleases 
men and angers them, and then they laugh at him and beat him. I 
am sure he is in the fleet : I would he had boarded me." (Note 
the equivocal use of " fleet," which may mean the company present, 
a company of ships, or, the prison for insolvent debtors ; "boarded " 
carries out the figure, " I would he had boarded me," that is, in- 
stead of you.) ^' Be7ie. When I know the gentleman, Pll tell him 
what you say. Beat. Do, do : he'll but break a comparison or two 
on me ; which, peradventure not marked or not laughed at, strikes 
him into melancholy ; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for 
the fool will eat no supper that night." 

The effect upon Benedick of the masked interview with Beatrice, 
we learn from the account of it he afterwards gives to Don Pedro. 
She misused him, he says, past the endurance of a block. She 
speaks poniards, and every word stabs. He declares he wouldn't 
marry her even if she were endowed with all that Adam had left 



MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 1 85 

him before he transgressed ; she would have made Hercules have 
turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. 
When she enters, Benedick makes an abrupt exit, saying, " O God, 
sir, here's a dish I love not ; I cannot endure my Lady Tongue." 

Things have now come to such a pass, the pair are so shut off 
from each other, as it were, by their persistent wit and raillery, 
that only by the kind interposition of their friends can their 
mutual disguises be stript off. This is done by the stratagem, first 
proposed by Don Pedro, and heartily seconded by Leonato, 
Claudio, and Hero. 

There are some commentators who go so far astray as to under- 
stand this stratagem as little more than a practical joke, for unit- 
ing in marriage two people, apparently so antagonistic, and so 
utterly unfitted to sustain to each other the relations of husband 
and wife. Shakespeare would certainly not have condescended to 
anything so small as that, whereby to excite mirth. If it were so, 
it would degrade the whole play. Even Mrs. Jameson speaks of 
the stratagem as practised upon Beatrice, as "a snare laid for 
her affections." If Beatrice's affections were not already enlisted, 
the stratagem would be silly. Don Pedro is entirely serious when 
he says : " I would fain have it a match, and I doubt not but to 
fashion it, if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall 
give you direction." Leonato, the uncle and guardian of Beatrice, 
whom he loves as deeply as he does his own daughter, replies, 
" My lord, I am for you, tho' it cost me ten nights' watching." 
He certainly doesn't understand what is about to be done, as a 
practical joke, to entrap his niece and Benedick into an ill-assorted 
marriage which would of course result in a plentiful lack of happi- 
ness. No. It is because he feels assured that Benedick and 
Beatrice have already a secret love for each other, notwithstand- 
ing their combats, which he calls, in the opening scene of the 
play, " a kind of merry war " and " a skirmish of wit," and be- 
cause he feels assured that their union would be one of happiness. 
The other view makes an ass of Leonato. And then see what 
Hero says, between whom and her cousin Beatrice, there is a deep 



\ 

\ 

1 86 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 

sisterly affection. After Leonato has said, " My lord, I am for 
you, tho' it cost me ten nights' watchings," Claudio says, " And I, 
my lord." Then Don Pedro turns to Hero and says, " And you 
too, gentle Hero? " To which she replies, " I will do any modest 
office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband." The 
speech of Don Pedro which follows, and which closes the scene, 
testifies to Benedick's noble lineage, his approved valor and con- 
firmed honesty. 

The soliloquies of Benedick and Beatrice, after the stratagem 
has been practised upon each, show what their real selves are 
which have been hitherto disguised. Benedick's soliloquy, taken 
with the soliloquy which precedes the stratagem, and in which his 
railing against matrimony reaches its climax, has a most comic 
effect. Beatrice's soliloquy, which she utters after Hero and Ur- 
sula go out, exhibits the genuineness of her nature. 

Coming forward, she says : 

*' What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true? 
Stand I condemned for pride and scorn so much ? 
Contempt, farewell ! and maiden pride, adieu ! 
No glory lives behind the back of such. 
And, Benedick, love on ; I will requite thee, 
Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand : 
If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee 
To bind our loves up in a holy band ; 
For others say thou dost deserve, and I 
Believe it better than reportingly." 

i.e., better than on hearsay. 

We have seen what has hitherto sharpened and winged the 
arrows shot at Benedick. She has been kept in a state of chronic 
pique at his constant satirical reflections upon, and his professed 
non-allegiance to, the sex whose honor she has felt herself called 
upon to defend. Her true self, which has all along secretly admired 
the solid elements of Benedick's character, has been, in conse- 
quence, kept in the background ; but as soon as she is made to 



MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 187 

believe that Benedick loves her, this true self comes immediately 
to the front. There is no transformation wrought — only a barrier 
has been removed which the two have co-operated to place between 
themselves by their sharp wit-skirmishes. 

Their mutual misnoting, along with their mutual love, is what 
essentially constitutes the comedy of the situation. If it be 
understood, as it is understood, more or less distinctly by some 
critics and readers, that a transformation has been wrought in each 
by the similar stratagem practised upon each, the comedy of the 
situation is quite destroyed. At any rate, it is of a very much 
inferior quaUty, and, I would add, it is not of a Shakespearian 
quality. 

The stratagem having been successfully carried out, the dramatic 
problem is, to raise them to the height required, after all that has 
passed, for a mutual confession of love, and, at the same time, to 
keep their self-respect entire. This problem the poet has, as we 
shall see, beautifully solved. 

The unshakable faith, the deep sympathy, and the moral indig- 
nation, of which Beatrice is capable, are shown in the scene in 
the church, where poor Hero is so cruelly treated. Shakespeare 
delights in situations which serve to exhibit the moral beauty of 
woman ; and he has made the situation here reveal the wealth of 
Beatrice's soul. Though her real nature has already been distinctly 
shown, in her soliloquy, after she overhears her cousin and Ursula, 
in the garden, it is here exalted and enlarged, and no question can 
arise as to what manner of woman she is. After the charge has 
been brought against the bride by the bridegroom, at the very 
altar, and it has been sustained by the Prince, both of whom, as 
Benedick later expresses it, having the very bent of honor, the 
bride's own father feels constrained, from such testimony, to believe 
it true. Benedick interrupts his bewailing speech with '' Sir, sir, be 
patient. For my part I am so attired in wonder I know not what 
to say." But Beatrice knows what to say. In spite of all the 
strong testimony against her cousin, in spite of the father's harshly 
expressed belief in her shame, Beatrice exclaims, " Oh, on my 



1 88 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 

soul, my cousin is belied ! " Her full, unfaltering belief in Hero's 
innocence is shown still more strongly by the reply she makes to 
Benedick's inquiry as to whether she were Hero's bedfellow the 
previous night. " No, truly not ; although, until last night, I have 
this twelvemonth been her bedfellow." This frank reply, which 
gives strong circumstantial support to the charge against Hero, she 
makes fearlessly, evidently feeling that the case can bear to have 
the whole truth told without the least reservation, and that Hero 
must be innocent, and will finally be proved so, all testimony, 
direct and circumstantial to the contrary, notwithstanding. The 
dramatist has, with great skill and by the simplest means, made 
the nobleness and perfect genuineness of Beatrice's character stand 
out here in the strongest light. 

Her testimony that Hero was not her bedfellow the previous 
night, confirms the father in his belief of the charge, — " makes 
stronger what was before barred up with ribs of iron." The good 
Friar Francis interposes in a speech which does honor to his heart, 
but which has no effect upon the wrought-up Leonato. To the 
question of the Friar, " Lady, what man is he you are accused 
of ? " Hero replies, " They know that do accuse me ; I know none : 
if I know more of any man alive than that which maiden modesty 
doth warrant, let all my sins lack mercy." 

The Friar thereupon remarking that there is some strange mis- 
understanding on the part of the princes. Benedick, assured as he 
is that Don Pedro and Claudio ''have the very bent of honor," is 
led to express the suspicion that the charge against Hero is all the 
work of Don John the bastard, "whose spirits toil," he says, "in 
frame of villainies." This gives a turn to things. Hero having 
swooned upon her father's saying " Hath no man's dagger here a 
point for me," in which speech, we must understand, was implied 
to her a belief in the charge made against her, and the princes 
having left her for dead, the Friar proposes a plan, which is sec- 
onded by Benedick, that her death be published, that a mourning 
ostentation be maintained, that mournful epitaphs be hung on the 
family monument, and all rites be performed that appertain unto 



MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 189 



a burial. This plan well carried out shall, he says, *^ on her behalf, 
change slander to remorse [pity] ; that is some good : but not for 
that dream I on this strange course, but on this travail look for 
greater birth." This greater birth he sets forth in a speech the 
most beautiful in sentiment and in tone, of the whole play, one of 
the most beautiful, indeed, in Shakespeare : 

" She dying, as it must be so maintained, 
Upon the instant that she was accusM, 
Shall be lamented, pitied, and excused. 
Of every hearer : For it so falls out, 
That what we have we prize not to the worth 
Whiles we enjoy it ; but being lack'd and lost, 
Why then we rack the value, then we find 
The virtue that possession would not show us 
Whiles it was ours : So will it fare with Claudio : 
When he shall hear she died upon his words, 
The idea of her Hfe shall sweetly creep 
Into his study of imagination ; 
And every lovely organ of her life 
Shall come apparelPd in more precious habit, 
More moving-delicate, and full of life. 
Into the eye and prospect of his soul, 
Than when she liv'd indeed : — then shall he mourn, 
(If ever love had interest in his liver,) 
And wish he had not so accused her ; 
No, though he thought his accusation true." 

Friar Francis is, of all Shakespeare's friars, the favorite, I am 
sure, with readers of the Plays, though Friar Laurence, in Romeo 
and Juhet, commands equally our love and respect. 

Leonato, urged by Benedick, in a speech which shows how he 
has been lifted up by the occasion and by Beatrice's exhibition of 
her highest self, rephes, " being that I flow in grief, the smallest 
twine may lead me." 

Very beautiful is the art with which Shakespeare has raised 
Benedick and Beatrice to the height required for a mutual avowal 



I go MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 

of love, after all that has passed between them ; and when Leo- 
nato and the Friar go out, and they are left alone on the scene, 
we see, in the best light, what in each has been shut off, more or 
less, from view, by wit and banter, and mutual misunderstanding 
— mutual misnoting (to revert to the punning title of the Play). 

Their preparedness for a mutual confession of love, and, on 
Benedick's part, for all that will be involved in that, in relation 
to righting Beatrice's cousin, is indicated, at once, in the begin- 
ning of their conference, after Leonato and the Friar go out (A. 
IV. Sc. i. 257) : ^^ Bene. Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this 
while? Beat. Yea, and I will weep a while longer. Bene, I 
will not desire that. Beat. You have no reason ; I do it freely. 
Bene. Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged. Beat. 
Ah, how much might the man deserve of me that would right 
her ! Bene. Is there any way to show such friendship ? Beat. 
A very even way, but no such friend. Bene. May a man do it? 
Beat. It is a man's office, but not yours." The movement of the 
dialogue thus far, is very nice, all the circumstances considered. 
In Beatrice's speech, "It is a man's office, but not yours," there 
is nothing whatever pettish or ill-humored to be understood, nor 
the slightest ingratitude for the kindly-disposed questions of Bene- 
dick. On the contrary, it involves the most dehcate consideration 
for Benedick, and indicates that she has " the very bent of honor." 
In the first place, their relations to each other have not gone far 
enough just yet, to give Beatrice the right to make any claims 
whatever upon Benedick for the righting of her deeply-injured 
cousin ; and, in the second place, those who have directly wronged 
her cousin, namely, Don Pedro and Claudio, are, she knows, Bene- 
dick's dearest friends. She knows nothing yet, of course, of what 
has impelled them to the charge made against Hero. Benedick 
is quick to recognize in her speech what is in the way of her mak- 
ing any claims upon him, and in reply says, " / do love nothing in 
the world so well as you " .• and adds, with a sense of their past 
squabbling relations, " is not that strange ? " 

The way is now opened up for Beatrice to make confession of 



MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 



191 



her love ; and this, it is evident, yet remains to be done before 
any claim can be made upon Benedick, — before it becomes his 
ofifice to right Hero. That way she enters with a charming indi- 
rectness : " As strange as the thing I know not. It were as pos- 
sible for me to say I loved nothing so well as you : but beUeve 
me not ; and yet I lie not ; I confess nothing, nor I deny noth- 
ing. I am sorry for my cousin. Bene. By my sword, Beatrice, 
thou lovest me." There seems to be implied in " by my sword," 
that Benedick, who is characterized by great quickness of percep- 
tion, already anticipates what will be required of him, as soon as 
the confession of love is mutual. Beatrice replies, " Do not swear 
and eat it " ; in which there is evidently implied her sense of the 
severe task it will necessarily be for Benedick to challenge either 
of his friends, in support of the honor of Hero. Benedick again 
is quick to understand, and replies, " I will swear by it that you 
love me ; and I will make him eat it that says I love not you." 
Beatrice tests him still further, though with the kindest and most 
honorable feeling, by saying, "Will you not eat your word? 
Bene. With no sauce that can be devised to it. I protest I love 
thee." Beatrice now feels that the final word, with all that is 
involved in it, can be uttered, and says, " Why, then, God for- 
give me ! Bene. What offence, sweet Beatrice ? Beat. You have 
stayed me in a happy hour ; I was about to protest I loved you. 
Beiie. And do it with all thy heart. Beat. I love you with so 
much of my heart that none is left to protest." Upon this Bene- 
dick at once feels that they are now all the world to each other, 
and that there are no outside considerations in the way of Bea- 
trice's making any demands upon him, and abruptly says, " Come, 
bid me do anything for thee " ; upon which Beatrice makes the 
unexpected and startling demand, " Kill Claudio." This speech 
has been made a little too much of, by critics who have regarded 
Beatrice as an unamiable character. She utters it the moment all 
obstacles are removed from her making demands upon Benedick, 
just as the gentlest and kindest person might use a strong expres- 
sion when under the influence of deep feeling. It exhibits the 



IQ2 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 

intense moral indignation she has felt and still feels, by reason of 
her cousin's wrongs. When the command is sprung upon Bene- 
dick, his reply, notwithstanding all that he has just said, leaps 
spontaneously from his lips, showing the genuine and deep friend- 
ship he entertains for Claudio, and doing honor to his heart, 
"Ha ! not for the wide world." But he is fully assured of what 
his duty is as the lover of Beatrice and as a man of honor, and 
resolves to do it. "Think you," he says, " in your soul the Count 
Claudio hath wronged Hero? Beat Yea, as sure as I have a 
thought or a soul. Bene. Enough, I am engaged ; I will chal- 
lenge him. I will kiss your hand; and so I leave you. By 
this hand, Claudio shall render me a dear account. As you hear 
of me, so think of me. Go comfort your cousin : I must say she 
is dead ; and so, farewell." 

Things begin to have a decidedly tragic look \ but the reader, or 
the spectator, knows what the actors do not know ; and the situa- 
tion has for him a comic background. He knows of the villany of 
Don John, and that it has been discovered by the watchmen who 
overhear the story told by Borachio to Conrade (A. HI. Sc. iii.). 
Leonato has the opportunity of knowing about the villany before 
he goes to church, Dogberry and Verges having called on him at 
his house to acquaint him with it ; but in his haste to be off to 
the marriage ceremony, he, having only learned from them that 
the watch " have comprehended two aspicious persons," dismisses 
the rude but faithful officials to make the examination themselves 
of the culprits. 

In A. V. Sc. i. Ill et seq., we see how Benedick comports him- 
self, in challenging Claudio. In spite of their high-proof melan- 
choly, as they call it, Claudio and Don Pedro are disposed to 
indulge in drollery, and their accustomed banter, with Benedick, 
who soon shows to them both his indisposition and his superiority 
thereto. He is now only the man of honor — honor backed and 
braced by love of Beatrice and regard for her deeply-wronged 
cousin. 

Benedick having challenged Claudio and gone out, Dogberry, 



MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 1 93 

Verges, and the Watch, enter with Conrade and Borachio, and 
Don Pedro and Claudio learn how their over-ready creduHty has 
been abused, through the machinations of the Bastard, Don John. 
But they don't learn that Hero is alive ; nor do they know this 
till in the last scene of the Play. 

When Benedick and Beatrice again meet, Benedick assures her 
that he has challenged Claudio, adding " and either I must shortly 
hear from him, or I will subscribe him a coward." This ends the 
honor matter. Each can now say, 

«' I could not love thee, dear, so much, 
Loved I not honor more." 

Immediately upon this, their pleasantries are renewed, with a 
mutual understanding of them. Benedick asking her for which of 
his bad parts she first fell in love with him ; and she asking him 
for which of her good parts he first suffered love for her, etc. 
Ursula enters and informs them of the discovery of the villany of 
Don John, and they go out. Lloyd remarks, Beatrice is misrepre- 
sented when actors allow to Benedick at this point, a premature 
success, that is, a kiss. This is reserved for the last scene, when 
after manful perseverance, he is victorious at last, over the banter 
of others and his own, and seals his success by kissing her to stop 
her mouth ; and in first proof of self-control, she leaves to her 
husband the office of retort and speaks no more. 



194 HAMLET. 



HAMLET. 



ONE of the many vexed questions to which the Tragedy of 
Hamlet has given rise — a question which has, indeed, 
been imposed upon the play, as a good many other questions have 
been — is that of Hamlet's sanity or insanity. 

There is no other of Shakespeare's dramas in which the hero 
occupies so large a space, is so great a part. Hamlet is the pro- 
tagonist in the tragedy ; he is, in fact, the all, the entire play. It 
is this which gives the meaning to the common saying, expressive 
of nothing remaining, " The play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out." 
In the introduction to "The Talisman," Scott says: "'The Be- 
trothed ' did not greatly please one or two friends, who thought that 
it did not well correspond to the general title of ' The Crusaders.' 
They urged, therefore, that without direct allusion to the manners 
of the Eastern tribes, and to the romantic conflicts of the period, 
the title of a 'Tale of the Crusaders,' would resemble the play 
bill which is said to have announced the tragedy of Hamlet, the 
character of the Prince of Denmark being left out." 

If Hamlet is deranged, he should be handed over for treatment 
to the superintendent of an Insane Hospital — he is not a subject 
for the art critic. If he is deranged, and the poet has presented 
through him correct phenomena of mental disease, the play may 
be regarded as a valuable contribution to pathology, but is not 
entitled to a niche in the great temple of Art. 

Hamlet's sanity, then, must be postulated, for it is only on such 
postulate that the art critic can proceed. But here it may be 
asked, cannot the insane or the diseased in any form be employed 
as part of the material with which the artist works? Most cer- 



HAMLET. 



195 



tainly it can — but the idea of his work cannot centre in it — 
cannot be based upon it. That idea must be one of health, of 
reason, of harmony with the constitution of things. Insanity may 
be employed in a work of art just as any other form of evil, of 
moral obHquity, of moral darkness, is employed — but insanity, 
or any other form of evil, of moral obliquity, of moral darkness, 
must be subsidiary to sanity, to the good and the true, to moral 
rectitude, to moral light. 

Those dramatic compositions which have exerted the greatest 
influence over the sympathies of men are all characterized by a 
large and even predominant element of moral obliquity, of moral 
evil, of moral darkness. Look at all the great Greek tragedies 
that have come down to us, at the masterpieces of the modern 
drama, especially those of Shakespeare. Their power might be 
pronounced to be almost in direct proportion to the degree in 
which the element of moral darkness predominates. Witness his 
Richard the Third, his King Lear, his Macbeth, his Othello. All 
these plays exert, and ever will exert, a powerful influence over 
the sympathies of mankind. 

Now what is the attraction for the artist when he selects subjects 
so characterized by enormity of crime, by enormity, we might say, 
of the unreasonable? Is it that he loves darkness rather than 
light, that evil deeds constitute so large an element of his creations? 
And is it because men in general love darkness rather than light, 
that they sympathize so deeply with such themes when treated by 
a great master? Certainly not. The artist does not employ, and 
men are not interested in, moral darkness for its own sake ; this, 
the most depraved would not be willing to admit ; but the attrac- 
tive element and the real basis of their sympathy is the light which 
struggles with, and is intensified by, the darkness. 

A mere reproduction of nature and of human life is not the 
end of art, but the emphasizing and intensifying of these in a way 
to impress deeply and pleasurably (/>., harmoniously) . And by 
emphasis, I mean something other than stress or strain of expres- 
sion. I don't mean that at all. Where there's the greatest em- 



196 HAMLET. 

phasis, in the true sense of the word, there's the least stress and strain 
of expression. It is only by emphasizing the natural, and the mani- 
fold phases of human life and character, that the poet secures a re- 
sponse in less susceptible souls. The great poet's soul is an yEoHan 
harp which vibrates responsive to the faintest spiritual breathings 
of things ; but ordinary souls are like the stiff cordage of ships 
which makes music only when played upon by the strongest blasts. 

Now one of the most effectual means of emphasis and inten- 
sity, employed by the word or color artist is, with the one, 
moral darkness, with the other, physical darkness, and these, 
in every true art product, are subsidiary to moral and physical 
light. As Blackie remarks, in his lectures on Beauty, " A picture 
becomes a picture in the highest artistical sense, only when the 
forms and lights composing it are separated from the great 
world of form and light, of which it is a part, by a certain and 
very appreciable darkness." And this applies equally as well to 
word-painting as to color-painting. Without moral or physical 
darkness, there can be, in an art product, no intensity of moral or 
physical light. 

It is the light, then, which struggles with the darkness, which is 
revealed and intensified by the darkness, which is the ultimate aim 
of all art worthy of the name ; and, although darkness may consti- 
tute, as it frequently does, the largest element, yet, in every true art 
product, it must ever be regarded as subsidiary to the exhibition 
of the light. 

Now, if all this is true, it might appear that Hamlet's insanity, 
assuming him to be insane, could be brought within the category 
of dark and intensifying elements. If so, we should have to look 
outside of him for what is intensified ; it would have to centre 
in some one of the other characters : it could not centre in him 
— in the unreasonable, the unreasoning. It might be resident in 
a great criminal, as is the case in the tragedy of Macbeth. But 
Macbeth is a responsible being; and when we sympathize with 
him, in an art sense, we sympathize with that/<7/r<? which we recog- 
nize as the stuff out of which true greatness and nobihty of charac- 



Hamlet. iq^ 

ter are built. But if he were to do what he does, in a state of 
insanity, of irresponsibiHty, of unconsciousness as to the enormity of 
his crimes, he would no longer be an art subject, but a subject for 
a strait- jacket. It is not in the constitution of our common nature 
to sympathize with crime as crime. In the case of a great criminal 
like Macbeth, our sympathy goes with him so far as he asserts his 
moral freedom and no further. 

Insanity, that degree, be it less or more, of mental derangement 
which does away with the responsibility of a man for his acts, can- 
not, of itself, be artistically treated. Art is the expression of, and 
must be in sympathy with, the rational and the moral constitution 
of things ; and a human being can, of himself, be a subject for art 
only when his reason and moral sense, however much they may be 
obscured, have that degree of vitaHty and activity which responsi- 
bility implies and demands. 

In the tragedy of Hamlet, all the other persons of the drama, 
while having their own distinct and well-defined individualities, 
and independent movements of their own, may at the same time 
be said to exist for the exhibition of the character of Hamlet. He 
is, as I have said, the all, the entire play, and in him centres the 
idea of the play ; and accordingly — assuming the play to be a 
legitimate art product, and no one certainly would deny it this 
character — the a priori conclusion in regard to Hamlet himself 
must be, that his reason and moral sense meet the demands of an 
artistic treatment. If they did not, it would be hard to explain 
why the play has retained its strange interest for the greatest minds 
in all civiHzed nations for nearly three hundred years. 

When the testimonies to his sanity afforded by the play are con- 
sidered, the wonder is that any question was ever raised in regard 
to it. These testimonies are chiefly afforded, i, by what Hamlet 
says, in a direct way, in regard to himself and his actions ; 2, by 
his soliloquies (a common means with Shakespeare, as indeed it is 
with all dramatists, by which his characters are made to reveal 
their true selves when they wish, or are obliged, to conceal them 
from others ; Edmund, in King Lear, for example, and lago, in 



198 HAMLET. 

Othello); and 3, by the interviews Hamlet has with his bosom 
friend and only confidant, Horatio. 

Let us turn to these sources of evidence. And i, what Hamlet 
says in a direct way, in regard to himself and his actions. 

In the 5 th Scene of the ist Act, after the Ghost has appeared 
and made his dread revelation to Hamlet, and imposed upon him 
the sacred obligation of avenging his foul and most unnatural 
murder, the Prince prepares Horatio and Marcellus for the part he 
is about to act. He makes them swear by his sword, which was 
in fact, equivalent to swearing by the cross. 

''Ham.' . . . And now, good friends, 
As you are friends, scholars and soldiers, 
Give me one poor request. 

Hor. What is't, my lord? we will. 

Ha7n. Never make kown what you have seen to-night. 

Mar. \ ^^ ^°^^' ^^ ^^^^ ^°^* 

Ham. Nay, but swear't. 

Hor. In faith, my lord, not I. 

Mar. Nor I, my lord, in faith. 

Ham. Upon my sword. 

Mar. We have sworn, my lord, already. 

Ha?n. Indeed, upon my sword, indeed. 

Ghost. \_Beneath.'] Swear. 

Ham. Ah, ha, boy! say'st thou so? art thou there, truepenny? 
Come on ; you hear this fellow in the cellerage ; 
Consent to swear. 

Hor. Propose the oath, my lord. 

Ham. Never to speak of this that you have seen, 
Swear by my sword. 

Ghost. {^Beneath.'] Swear. 

Ham. Hie &^ tibigue ? Then we'll shift for ground, 
Come hither, gentlemen. 
And lay your hands again upon my sword, 
Never to speak of this that you have heard ; 
Swear by my sword. 

Ghost. [Beneath.'] Swear. 



HAMLET, 



199 



Ham. Well said, old mole ! canst work in the earth so fast ? 
A worthy pioner ! once more remove, good friends. 

Hor. Oh day and night, but this is wondrous strange ! 

Ham. And therefore as a stranger give it welcome. 
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
Then are dreamt of in our philosophy. 
But come ; 

Here, as before, never, so help you mercy. 
How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself, 
(As I, perchance, hereafter shall think meet 
To put an antic disposition on :) 
That you, at such time seeing me, never shall 
With arras encumbered thus, or thus, head shake, 
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase. 
As, ' Well, we know ; ' or, ' We could, and if we would ; ' 
Or, ' If we list to speak ; ' or, ' There be, and if there might ; ' 
Or such ambiguous giving out, to note 
That you know aught of me : This not to do, 
So grace and mercy at your most need help you, 
Swear. 

Ghost. {Beneath. '\ Swear. 

Ham. Rest, rest, perturbed spirit ! So, gentlemen, 
With all my love I do commend me to you : 
And what so poor a man as Hamlet is 
May do, to express his love and friending to you, 
God wilHng, shall not lack. Let us go in together ; 
And still your fingers on your lips, I pray. 
The time is out of joint ; — Oh cursed spite ! 
That ever I was born to set it right ! 

Nay, come, let's go together." {^Exeunt. 

— A. I. Sc. v. 140-190. 

Hamlet has here already taken in the whole difficulty of the 
situation — and that difficulty is an objective one, not a subjective. 
It is not a difficulty due to Hamlet's own character. It is a diffi- 
culty outside of himself, as Professor Werder, in his " Vorlesungen 
uber Shakespeare's Hamlet," has so ably shown, in opposition to 
the views of Goethe, Coleridge, and, in fact, of nearly all the 
commentators. 



200 HAMLET. 

The portion of Scene V. above quoted would seem, of itself, to 
be quite sufficient to explain all the apparent mental aberration 
which Hamlet exhibits throughout the rest of the Play. 

Another example of the first kind of testimony (what Hamlet 
says in a direct way in regard to himself and his actions), is 
afforded by his speech to his mother, in the 4th Scene of the 3d 
Act, beginning where the Ghost enters, i02d line : 

*' Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings, 
You heavenly guards ! — What would you, gracious figure ? 

Queen. Alas, he's mad. 

Ham. Do you not come your tardy son to chide, 
That, laps'd in time and passion, lets go by 
The important acting of your dread command.? 
Oh say. 

Ghost. Do not forget : This visitation 
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose. 
But look, amazement on thy mother sits : 
Oh step between her and her fighting soul ; 
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works : 
Speak to her, Hamlet. 

Hatn. How is it with you, lady? 

Queen. Alas, how is't with you? 
That you do bend your eye on vacancy, 
And with the incorporal air do hold discourse? 
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep ; 
And as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm, 
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements. 
Starts up, and stands an end. O gentle son, 
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper 
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look ? 

Ham. On him ! on him ! Look you, how pale he glares ! 
His form and cause conjoined preaching to stones. 
Would make them capable. — Do not look upon me ; 
Lest with this piteous action you convert 
My stern effects : then what I have to do 
Will want true colour : tears perchance for blood. 

Queen. To whom do you speak this? 



HAMLET. 



20 1 



Ham. Do you see nothing there ? 

Queen. Nothing at all : yet all that is I see. 

Ham. Nor did you nothing hear ? 

Qneen. No, nothing but ourselves. 

Ham. Why, look you there ! look how it steals away ! 
My father, in his habit as he lived ! 
Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal ! 

\^Exit Ghost. 

Qiieen. This is the very coinage of your brain : 
This bodiless creation ecstasy 
Is very cunning in. 

Ham. Ecstasy? 
My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time, 
And makes as healthful music. It is not madness 
That I have uttered : bring me to the test. 
And I the matter will re-word ; which madness 
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace, 
Lay not a flattering unction to your soul, 
That not your trespass, but my madness, speaks : 
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place, 
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within, 
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven ; 
Repent what's past, avoid what is to come. 
And do not spread the compost o'er the weeds, 
To make them rank. Forgive me this my virtue, 
For in the fatness of these pursy times 
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg, 
Yea, curb and woo, for leave to do him good. 

Queeii. O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain. 
Hain. O throw away the worser part of it, 
And live the purer with the other half. 
Good night : but go not to mine uncle's bed ; 
Assume a virtue, if you have it not. 
Refrain to-night : 

And that shall lend a kind of easiness 
To the next abstinence : the next more easy ; 
For use almost can change the stamp of nature, 
And master the devil, or throw him out 
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night : 



202 HAMLET. 

And when you are desirous to be bless'd, 
ril blessing beg of you. — For this same lord, 

{Pointing to PoLONius. 
I do repent ; but heaven hath pleased it so, 
To punish me with this, and this with me, 
That I must be their scourge and minister. 
I will bestow him, and will answer well 
The death I gave him. So again, good night. 
I must be cruel, only to be kind ; 
Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind." 

And before he leaves her, he enjoins upon her not to allow the 
King to get from her his secret : " Let him not," he says, " make 
you to ravel all this matter out, that I essentially am not in mad- 
ness, but mad in craft." 

Attention might be called to numerous minor items of evidence 
belonging to the first class. There is one little but very significant 
expression used by Hamlet, in the 2d Scene of the 3d Act, 95th 
line, which should be noted, as it may be easily overlooked and 
even misunderstood. It occurs immediately after that healthy, 
robust, and noble speech of Hamlet to Horatio in which we have 
a nice dehneation of the character of his bosom friend, and a 
warm expression of his high estimate of it : 

** Ham. Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man 
As e'er my conversation cop'd withal. 

Hor, O my dear lord. 

Ha?n. Nay, do not think I flatter : 

For what advancement may I hope from thee, 
That no revenue hast but thy good spirits, 
To feed and clothe thee ? Why should the poor be flatter'd ? 
No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp. 
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee. 
Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear? 
Since my dear soul was mistress of my choice. 
And could of men distinguish, her election 
Hath seal'd thee for herself : for thou hast been 
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing; 



HAMLET, 203 

A man, that fortune's buffets and rewards 
Hath ta'en with equal thanks : and blest are those. 
Whose blood and judgment are so well comingled. 
That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger 
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man 
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him 
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart. 
As I do thee. Something too much of this. 
There is a play to-night before the king ; 
, One scene of it comes near the circumstance 

Which I have told thee, of my father's death. 
I prithee, when thou seest that act a-foot, 
Even with the very comment of my * soul 
Observe mine uncle : if his occulted f guilt 
Do not itself unkennel in one speech. 
It is a damned ghost that we have seen ; 
And my imaginations are as foul 
As Vulcan's stithy. Give him heedful note : 
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face ; 
And after we will both our judgments join 
To censure of his seeming. 

Hor. Well, my lord : 

If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing, 
And scape detecting, I will pay the theft." 

Hereupon, the approach of the King, Queen, Courtiers, and 
others, is announced by a flourish, and Hamlet says to Horatio, 
''They are coming to the play, I must be idle : get you a place." 
That is, not "unoccupied," as the careless reader might under- 
stand it, but " foolish, light-headed, crazy," a sense in which it is 



* My 7^1. Hamlet's meaning is, " I would have thee so enter into my feel- 
ings, so identify thyself with me that, when thou seest that act afoot, even with 
the very comment of my soul, thou wilt observe mine uncle." The use of 
" my " also gives force to " even with the very " which has less force in the 
reading " thy " of the Qq. 

t Occulted guilt \ "All the ancient authors of old time defined murder to 
be occulta hominis occisio, etc., when it was done in secret, so as the offender 
was not known; but now it is taken in a larger sense." — Coke, 3 Instit. cap. 7. 



204 



HAMLET. 



used in many other places in Shakespeare.* And it is worthy of 
notice, that for the speech of the Queen in the Closet Scene (A. III. 
Sc. iv.), and Hamlet's reply thereto, in the 2d and subsequent 
Quartos, and in the Folio, beginning, " This is the very coinage 
of your brain : this bodiless creation ecstasy is very cunning in. 
Ham. Ecstasy? My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep 
time, and makes as healthful music : it is not madness that I have 
uttered : " we have in the original Quarto of 1603, " Queen. But 
Hamlet, this is only fantasy, and for my love forget these idl^ 
fits. Ham. Idle, no mother, my pulse doth beat like yours. It 
is not madness that possesseth Hamlet." 

This little speech, "I must be idle," taken in connection with 
the healthy, robust, and noble speech which immediately precedes 
and Hamlet's conduct which immediately follows, shows that the 
latter was prepense, and clinches the several testimonies of the 
first class to purely feigned insanity. And it is not refining too 
much, to see a significance in Hamlet's saying to Horatio, " Get 
you a place." The court all know the close intimacy which exists 
between them, and Hamlet does not consider it politic that they 
sit together. And when the Queen invites him to sit by her, he 
replies, " No, good mother, here's metal more attractive," and 
takes his seat by Ophelia ; and Polonius, still adhering to his origi- 
nal opinion as to the cause of Hamlet's supposed madness, says 
aside to the King, " Oh, ho ! do you mark that?" 

The second kind of testimony I've named, to Hamlet's sanity, 
is that afforded by the soUloquies. 

The several soliloquies not only show no aberration, in any 
respect, but they, on the contrary, are characterized by high and 
coherent reasoning, and profound wisdom and philosophy. In 
his soliloquies, Hamlet is his best interpreter. In them, his utter- 
ances are, of course, entirely uninfluenced by policy or other 
considerations. 

The first soliloquy, which he utters before he has been informed 



* See Schmidt, s.v. 3. 



HAMLET. 205 

of the appearance of his father's ghost, " Oh, that this too too solid 
flesh would melt," etc., A. I. Sc. ii. 129-158, is especially interesting. 
" What Hamlet, — I cannot say, has a presentiment of, but never- 
theless, what is m him, dark, voiceless, but yet there, wholly unde- 
fined, but not to be banished, and inborn, as it were, in his nature, 
— he does not understand, can form no idea of it, but he feels it ! 
The atmosphere of murder, which he inhales, which breathes 
upon him from the person of the murderer, the shuddering sense 
of the ghost hovering near, all that awaits him, all that stands 
ready at the door, all that his friends have brought to his knowl- 
edge, all that the Ghost has upon his lips to say to him ; the terror, 
terrible as Past and as Future, — all that is for him here, and is 
his : all this is in him ! This is the burthen which oppresses him, 
the immovable weight which he does not yet understand, but 
which he feels ! Hence the tone and coloring of this soliloquy." * 
It bears testimony to Hamlet's susceptibility to the essential 
world. It is not morbidity — it is the finest healthfulness. The 
soliloquy is an illustration of what Longfellow expresses in his 
" Evangeline " : 

" As at the tramp of a horse's hoof in the limitless prairie, 
Far in advance are closed the leaves of the shrinking mimosa, 
So at the hoof-beats of Fate, with sad forebodings of evil, 
Shrinks and closes the heart, ere the stroke of doom has attained it." 

The next soliloquy is that which he utters, after the players have 
gone out (A. II. Sc. ii. 576-634), they having given him, as he ex- 
presses it, " a taste of their quality." There is strong self-rebuke 
in it, and self-rebuke doesn't belong to a madman. It belongs to 
a man with a keen moral sense, who does not, or, as is the case 
with Hamlet, cannot, under opposing circumstances (not by rea- 
son of his own nature), do the thing he would; cannot, in a 
rational manner. And Hamlet understands the rational in the 
case. A man may unjustly rebuke himself; and this Hamlet does 
in the soliloquy before us. " Pray, have people," says Werder, 



* Karl Werder. 



206 HAMLET. 

" no ears for the agony of a human being, which is so intolerable 
that it drives him to the extremity of falHng out with himself; no 
appreciation of a situation in which righteous indignation, because 
it cannot reach its object, turns against itself, in order to give 
itself vent, and to cool the heated sense of the impossibility of 
acting, by self-reproach and all manner of self-depreciation ? " 
At the close of the soliloquy, Hamlet says : 

" I have heard 
That guilty creatures sitting at a play 
Have by the very cunning of the scene 
Been struck so to the soul that presently 
They have proclaimed their malefactions : 
For murther, though it have no tongue, will speak 
With most miraculous organ. Til have these players 
Play something like the mm'der of my father 
Before mine uncle : Fll observe his looks ; 
ril tent him to the quick : if he but blench, 
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen 
May be the devil : and the devil hath power 
To assume a pleasing shape ; yea, and perhaps 
Out of my weakness and my melancholy, 
As he is very potent with such spirits. 
Abuses me to damn me : I'll have grounds 
More relative than this : the play's the thing 
Wherein Pll catch the conscience of the king." 

Hamlet beheves that an objective, veritable ghost has appeared 
to him (" Shakespeare has with marked design and care guarded 
the Ghost of Hamlet's father against the damaging imputation of 
subjectivity ") ; * but the suspicion comes to him that the spirit 
he has seen may be the devil, who abuses him to damn him. 
This suspicion he determines to test. The play catches the con- 
science of the King, and Hamlet is assured that it is an honest 
ghost ; but (and this is the important thing to be noted) it does 



* George H. Calvert, in his " Shakespeare : a Biographic, Esthetic Study," 
p. 1 60. 



HAMLET. 207 

not cause the King to "proclaim his malefaction," — does not 
have the all-important effect which Hamlet hoped it would have, 
as is implied in the words : 

" I have heard 
That guilty creatures sitting at a play 
Have by the very cunning of the scene 
Been struck so to the soul that presently 
They have prodawied their malefactions?'' 

Hamlet is assured by the play, of the King's guilt, and the King 
knows that he is in possession of his dread secret. That is all. 
And the way is consequently not yet open for Hamlet to act. 
And because he does not act, but continues to show himself " all 
tongue and no hand," the inference has been, as Klein humor- 
ously expresses it, in the "Berhner Modenspiegel," 1846, "that 
the all-powerful imagination of Shakespeare was impregnated by 
a miserable scholastic abstraction that has not virility enough to 
engender anything . . . that it was Shakespeare's design to por- 
tray in Hamlet a German half-professor, all tongue and no hand, 
forever cackling, and hatching nothing, like a dog wagging his tail 
at the sound of his own barking, whom one would fain help out of 
his dream, like Polonius, with a '■ less art and more matter ! ' . . . 
that Shakespeare had in mind a pedant who perchance likes to 
scrawl flourishes and arabesque abstractions in the schoolroom 
dust, but who is found at heart to be good for nothing when sum- 
moned to action, to the business of life, instantly losing all pres- 
ence of mind, darting now here and now there, bobbing now to 
the right and now to the left, instead of doing, trying how not to 
do, running from cook to tapster, from shop to shop, hoping thus, 
with the devil's aid, to make his hobby go, — in the end, however, 
bringing nothing to pass, but at the last, as at the first, hanging, silly 
dunce that he is, tangled in ' the nothingness of reflection ' ot his 
own brain. It is proved also, from the Hegelian Bible, that Shake- 
speare was a right orthodox Hegelian, who created Hamlet in strict 
accordance with the orthodox doctrine of identity. It was the 
split between thought and action, that, according to the Hegehan 



208 HAMLET. 

idea, Shakespeare had in mind in Hamlet ! According to a ready- 
made category of Hegel's stamping, Hamlet was fashioned ! But 
let the stamp go ! How about the split ? How ? Why, does not 
every word in the play speak of this split? Does not the essence 
of the tragic lie in this hunting down of thought and act, this hide 
and seek of willing and doing, self-stinging at one moment, and 
then limp, languishing away into lazy melancholy? O strange, 
strange, supremely strange ! The tragic ? The comic, you 
mean ! " 

There are no soliloquies in Shakespeare in which there is so 
perfectly natural a movement of the reflective faculty exhibited, 
as in that on Suicide, A. HI. Sc. i., beginning at the 56th line. 
Hamlet puts the question at first in the simple, abstract form, 
"To be, or not to be: that is the question:" then, concretely, 
and in its moral bearing : '' Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to 
suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms 
against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them ? " Having 
put the question in these two forms, he considers what it is to die : 
" To die : " and after reflecting a moment, he answers, " to sleep ; 
no more." His decision that to die is to sleep, no more than 
that, starts another question, whether, by a sleep we shall " end the 
heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to." 
In the I St FoUo, the note of interrogation is placed after " flesh 
is heir to," and this is as it should be. 

" and by a sleep to say we end 
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks 
That flesh is heir to ? " 

Upon which he remarks, consonantly with his present sadness : 

" 'tis a consummation 
Devoutly to be wishM." 

He then iterates to the point he has reached : " To die, to 
sleep." 

His mind then passes to an idea suggested by " sleep " : 



HAMLET. 209 

" To sleep : perchance to dream ! ay, there's the rub ; " 

(" rub " is a term of the game of bowls, meaning a collision hin- 
dering the bowl in its course ; hence, any obstacle or impediment.) 

" Ay, there's the rub ; " 
And why ? 

" For in that sleep of death what dreams may come," 

("what" is the emphatic word here; the question is, what will 
be the nature of those dreams ? Will they be happy, or will they 
be unhappy, dreams ?) 

"For in that sleep of death what dreams may come 
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil," 

(this entanglement, turmoil of earthly Hfe, or, it may be, this coil 
of flesh, " this muddy vesture of decay,") 

" For in that sleep of death what dreams may come 
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, 
Must give us pause : " 

Then the general result of this last reflection, is set forth, and 
what would be the result were it not for this restraining considera- 
tion : 

" there's the respect [consideration] 
That makes calamity of so long life ; 
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time. 
The oppressors wrong, the poor man's contumely, 
The pangs of dispriz'd love," 

so the Folio reads, and it is a better reading than " despised " of 
the Qq. A disprized or undervalued love, a love that is only par- 
tially appreciated and responded to, would be apt to suffer more 
pangs than a despised love : 

" The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay, 
The insolence of office, and the spurns 
That patient merit of the unworthy takes, 
When he himself might his quietus make 
With a bare bodkin?" 



210 HAMLET. 

"Quietus is the technical term for the acquittance which every 
sheriff or accountant receives on settUng his accounts at the Ex- 
chequer. The mention of the law's delay introduced the idea of 
proceedings in the courts of law, which led him to think of the 
Exchequer. Many an accountant in that court has longed for 

his quietus y 

** Who would these fardels bear, 

To grunt and sweat under a weary life," 

(the Folio reading and the correct reading) : the fardels are 
the burdens before spoken of, the whips and scorns, the oppres- 
sor's wrong, and the other evils he had specified. Having said, 
who would bear (the several things he specifies) he repeats, who 
would bear these fardels (representing all the specified ones) for 
the purpose of introducing the exceptive clause, 

" But that the dread of something after death. 
The undiscovered country from whose bourn 
No traveller returns, puzzles the will. 
And makes us rather bear those ills we have 
Than fly to others that we know not of ? " 

It's surprising that the word these, before fardels, should be 
omitted in all the so-called critical texts, with only two or three 
exceptions. 

*' Thus conscience does make cowards of us all ; " 

" Conscience " seems to be used here in the sense of conscious- 
ness in general, private judgment, inmost thoughts. 

" Thus conscience does make cowards of us all ; 
And thus the native hue [natural color] of resolution 
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," 

thought is care, anxiety, melancholy, whose hue is pale. 

"And enterprises of great pith and moment 
With this regard {i.e., of the future] their currents turn away, 
And lose the name of action." * 



* See " Jottings on the Text of Hamlet," p. 344 of this volume. 



HAMLET. 21 F 

And then noticing Ophelia, he says : 

" Soft you now ! The fair OpheUa ? — 
Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered." 

"This," says Johnson, "is a touch of nature. Hamlet, at the 
sight of Ophelia, does not immediately recollect that he is to per- 
sonate madness, but makes her an address grave and solemn, such , 
as the foregoing meditation excited in his thoughts." 

I have dwelt thus long on this celebrated soliloquy, to show how 
closely and subtly sequacious it is. Here we have the real Ham- 
let. In the dialogue which immediately follows, with Opheha, we 
have the assumed Hamlet, Hamlet with "an antic disposition 
on." It is evident that the poet advisedly brought together this 
closely and subtly sequacious soliloquy and his talk with Ophelia, 
which to her indicates that his once " noble and most sovereign 
reason " is now " like sweet bells jangled out of tune, and harsh," 
for the purpose of strongly contrasting the real and the assumed 
Hamlet. So viewed, nothing could be more dramatically proper ; 
nor more in Shakespeare's manner ; while nothing could be more 
dramatically improper, if his talk with Opheha be regarded as 
indicative of real mental aberration ; even if it be shown to be 
scientific that a man can be the soundest, subtlest reasoner one 
moment, and the very next moment have his faculties all in a 
jumble. For Hamlet is a work of dramatic ^r/, and not a scien- 
tific treatise. Some of the experts in insanity who have treated 
the subject of Hamlet's mental condition, have lost sight of this 
fact. Shakespeare is the supreme artist ; and whatever else he is, 
he is first and last the artist ; and he would not, could not, have 
made the idea of one of his greatest productions centre in a man 
vibrating rapidly between reason and unreason. 

The last soliloquy to which I would call attention is that in the 
4th Scene of the 4th Act, which Hamlet utters after meeting with 
and questioning the Captain whom Fortinbras has sent to greet 
the Danish King and to crave the conveyance of a promised 
march over his kingdom (11. 9-66). 



212 HAMLET. 

Here we have again strong self-rebuke. But it must not be 
explained on the theory of Hamlet's indisposition to action, much 
as it may appear to support that theory.* 

Swinburne justly pronounces this "the supreme soliloquy of 
Hamlet." " Magnificent," he says, "as is that monologue on sui- 
cide and doubt ... it is actually echpsed and distanced at once 
on philosophic and on poetical grounds by the later soliloquy on 
reason and resolution." 

The third kind of evidence against the theory of Hamlet's insan- 
ity is that derived from the interviews he has with his bosom-friend 
and only confidant, Horatio. In these interviews, he is uniformly 
rational, and his speeches are freighted with wisdom, and show a 
deep insight into life and its mysteries — a deep insight due to 
that spiritual susceptibility indicated in the ist soliloquy, "Oh, that 
this too too solid flesh would melt" (A. I. Sc. ii. 129), when com- 
ing events cast their shadows upon him, and he feels their shadows 
ere he knows from what they are cast — a deep insight which 
made him cognizant of more things than are dreamt of in human 
philosophy, and which caused him to feel deeply, " what a piece 
of work is a man ! how noble in reason ! how infinite in faculty ! 
... in apprehension, how like a god ! " 

And Horatio shows nowhere in the play that he at any time 
has the faintest suspicion of any mental aberration on the part of 
Hamlet. Their perfect faith in each other, to the end, is very 
beautiful. After Hamlet has received his death-wound from the 
envenomed sword of Laertes, he says : " Horatio, I am dead ; 
Thou livest ; report me and my cause aright to the unsatisfied. . . . 
O good Horatio, what a wounded name things standing thus un- 
known, shall live behind me !^^ This last anxiety of the dying 
Hamlet about leaving a wounded name, reflects the idea of the 
play so fully and, as I think, conclusively set forth by Professor 
Werder. Hamlet had to revenge a secret murder of which he 



* I must refer the student to Karl Werder's interpretation of this soliloquy 
given in Dr. Furness's " New Variorum Edition of Hamlet," Vol. II. p. 366. 



HAMLET. 213 

could produce no material proof, no proof that would be accepted 
— only the testimony of a ghost, whose testimony no one but him- 
self heard ; and without producing this material proof, unveiling 
the secret murder, or forcing the King to a full confession, to 
have assassinated the King would have been utterly irrational : as 
utterly irrational as is the assumption implied in a large body of 
criticism on the play that but for Hamlet's incapacity for action, 
he would have killed the King. Nonsense. And there is no 
evidence that Hamlet was restrained by moral scruples, that an 
abhorrence of the deed restrained him. But there is evidence 
that his reason^ his common sense, restrained him. True ven- 
geance demanded that full proof of the King's guilt should be 
afforded the court and the people of Denmark ; and it was true 
vengeance which was required by the Ghost and which Hamlet 
sought. And now when Fate makes him the slayer of the King, 
he entreats his friend Horatio, in his last moments, to set him 
right before the world : 

" If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart. 
Absent thee from felicity awhile, 
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, 
To tell my story." 

Experts in insanity have testified to the genuineness of Hamlet's 
aberration. Well, if the phenomena be such as to cause experts 
to pronounce his "antic disposition" genuine insanity, what of it, 
more than that Shakespeare knew the phenomena of genuine in- 
sanity, and in making Hamlet feign insanity, made the feigning 
as like as possible to the real thing. If the feigning is meant to 
serve any purpose at all, the more successful it is the better. 

I am disposed to think that Coleridge and Goethe, by the sub- 
stantially similar theories they advanced, in regard to the man, 
Hamlet, contributed more, especially Goethe (as he exercised a 
wider authority than Coleridge), toward shutting off a sound criti- 
cism of the play, than any other critics or any other cause. Their 
dicta were generally accepted as quite final ; and many a Shake- 



214 HAMLET. 

speare student, now living, whatever his present views may be, 
can remember when he so accepted them, and had not a ghmmer 
of suspicion that in the main they might be wide of the mark. 

Goethe's " Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre," which contained his 
celebrated criticism on Hamlet, was given to the world in 1795. 
But it was probably not read in England until Carlyle's translation 
of it appeared, in 1824, or thereabout. 

Mr. Coleridge delivered his Lectures on Shakespeare in the 
winter of 1811-12, and for what we possess of them we are chiefly 
indebted to J. Payne Collier, who took short-hand notes of a por- 
tion of the Course, which extended to 1 7 lectures, two or three 
being on Milton. Philosophical criticism was then in its infancy ; 
and Coleridge's Lectures were regarded, and in many respects 
justly regarded, as new revelations of Shakespeare's power, espe- 
cially as an artist. Previous to that time, the 7naierial of Shake- 
speare's Plays was chiefly regarded as constituting their greatness. 
That he was the master-artist was hardly yet suspected. 

Let us turn, for a moment, to the view taken by Goethe, of 
Hamlet, in his "Wilhelm Meister," Book V. I give Carlyle's 
translation : 

" Figure to yourselves this youth, this son of princes, conceive 
him vividly, bring his condition before your eyes, and then ob- 
serve him when he learns that his father's spirit walks ; stand by 
him in the terrible night when the venerable Ghost itself appears 
before him. A horrid shudder seizes him ; he speaks to the mys- 
terious form ; he sees it beckon him ; he follows it and hearkens. 
The fearful accusation of his uncle rings in his ears ; the summons 
to revenge and the piercing reiterated prayer : ' Remember me ! ' 
And when the Ghost has vanished, whom is it we see standing 
before us ? A young hero panting for vengeance ? A born prince, 
feeling himself favored in being summoned to punish the usurper 
of his crown ? No ! Amazement and sorrow overwhelm the sol- 
itary young man ; he becomes bitter against smiling villains, swears 
never to forget the departed, and concludes with the significant 
ejaculation : ' The time is out of joint : O cursed spite, That ever 



HAMLET. 215 

I was bom to set it right ! ' In these words, I imagine, is the 
key to Hamlet's whole procedure, and to me it is clear that Shake- 
speare sought to depict a great deed laid upon a soul unequal to 
the performance of it. In this view I find the piece composed 
throughout. Here is an oak tree planted in a costly vase, which 
should have received in its bosom only lovely flowers ; the roots 
spread out, the vase is shivered to pieces. A beautiful, pure, 
noble, and most moral nature, without the strength of nerve which 
makes the hero, sinks beneath a burden which it can neither bear 
nor throw off; every duty is holy to him, — this, too hard. The 
impossible is required of him, — not the impossible in itself, but 
the impossible to hifn. How he winds, turns, agonizes, advances 
and recoils, ever reminded, ever reminding himself, and at last 
almost loses his purpose from his thoughts, without ever again 
recovering his peace of mind." 

Here, it will be observed, the difficulty of Hamlet's situation is 
attributed entirely to subjective causes : it lies within Hamlet him- 
self. " The impossible," Goethe says, " is required of him, — not 
the impossible in itself, but the impossible to /«>//." All which is 
equivalent to saying, if Hamlet were other than he is, the thing 
could be easily enough done. 

To turn now to Coleridge's view, which we shall see is substan- 
tially the same as that of Goethe. The difficulty of Hamlet's 
situation he attributes wholly to subjective causes. He says : " I 
believe the character of Hamlet might be traced to Shakespeare's 
deep and accurate science in mental philosophy. Indeed, that 
this character must have some connection with the common fun- 
damental laws of our nature may be assumed from the fact that 
Hamlet has been the darhng of every country in which the litera- 
ture of England has been fostered. In order to understand him, 
it is essential that we should reflect on the constitution of our own 
minds. Man is distinguished from the brute animals in propor- 
tion as thought prevails over sense : but in the healthy processes 
of the m.ind, a balance is constantly maintained between impres- 
sions from outward objects and the inward operations of the Intel- 



2l6 HAMLET, 

lect ; — for if there be an overbalance in the contemplative faculty, 
man thereby becomes the creature of mere meditation, and loses 
his natural power of action." 

Coleridge here gives an admirable description of himself; but 
it is not applicable to Hamlet's case. He adds the following 
startling statement : 

" Now one of Shakespeare's modes of creating characters is, to 
conceive any one intellectual or moral faculty in 7norbid excess, 
and then to place himself, Shakespea?'e thus mutilated or diseased, 
under given circumstances y 

Macaulay more truly says, in his Article on Madame D'Arblay, 
that " it is the constant manner of Shakespeare to represent the 
human mind as lying, not under the absolute dominion of one 
domestic propensity, but under a mixed government, in which a 
hundred powers balance each other. Admirable as he was in all 
points of his art, we most admire him for this, that, while he has 
left us a greater number of striking portraits than all other drama- 
tists put together, he has scarcely left us a single caricature." 
But would not such a mode of creating character as Coleridge 
ascribes to him result in caricature? And in caricature only? It 
certainly would. That is rather Ben Jonson's mode of creating 
character. He personifies autocratic moods and humors, and 
does not, therefore, attain to complete personalities, actuated by a 
subtle complexity of motives, and exhibiting what Dowden calls 
"the mystery of vital movement." 

" In Hamlet," Coleridge continues, '' he [Shakespeare] seems 
to have wished to exemplify the moral necessity of a due balance 
between our attention to the objects of our senses and our medita- 
tion on the workings of our minds, — an equilibrium between the 
real and the imaginary worlds." 

Is not such a view, I would ask, by the way, un-Shakespearian — 
that Shakespeare wished to exemplify, etc. ? One is likely to go 
astray when he sees, or looks for, abstract notions operating in a 
play of Shakespeare. 

"In Hamlet," Coleridge continues, "this balance is disturbed; 



HAMLET. 



217 



his thoughts and the images of his fancy are far more vivid than 
his actual perceptions, and his very perceptions, instantly passing 
through the mediiim of his contemplations, acquire, as they pass, 
a form and a color not naturally their own. Hence we see a 
great, an almost enormous, intellectual activity, and a propor- 
tionate aversion to real action consequent upon it, with all its 
symptoms and accompanying qualities. This character Shake- 
speare places in circumstances under which he is obliged to act 
on the spur of the tnoi?ient\_ !] : Hamlet is brave and careless of 
death ; but he vacillates from sensibility, and procrastinates from 
thought, and loses the power of action in the energy of resolve." 

This is as explicit and emphatic as it can be made. The diffi- 
culty with Hamlet, according to Coleridge, is a wholly subjective one 
— "a great, an almost enormous intellectual activity" inducing "a 
proportionate aversion to real action." And this statement, strong 
as it is, is even emphasized by the statement that " Hamlet is brave 
and careless of death.'' His bravery and his disregard of death 
are not sufficient to overcome his aversion to action induced by 
his intellectual activity — although the call for action has come 
from the spirit of an honored father, of blessed memory, who was 
" of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch'd " ; who was to the 
one who occupies the throne, " Hyperion to a satyr ! " If this is 
a true characterization of Hamlet, what a monstrosity he is ! the 
greatest monstrosity to be found in all dramatic literature. And 
such a monstrosity, we are told, by Coleridge himself, " has been 
the darling of every country in which the literature of England has 
been fostered." Why, if an enormous intellectual activity can 
possibly have such dire consequences as to bind a man hand and 
foot, and thus to disable him from performing the most sacred 
duties, there should be placarded, in colossal and glaring letters, 
at all the corners of our streets, for all men to read, BEWARE 
OF AN ENORMOUS INTELLECTUAL ACTIVITY. We 
should shut up all our colleges and universities, for fear that many 
young men and young women, through the intellectual stimulant 
these institutions afford, might be so unfortunate as to attain to 



2l8 HAMLET. 

an enormous intellectual activity. Why, in the name of every- 
thing that's reasonable, where's the dramatic interest to come 
from, with such an irredeemable do-nothing for the hero of the 
drama as Coleridge represents Hamlet to be ? Whatever interest 
such a man might have for the mental philosopher, it's the dra- 
matic interest we must always look for, in a play of Shakespeare. 
Shakespeare is a dramatist, and always a dramatist, not a psychol- 
ogist. And we shall always find a true dramatic interest in his 
plays, if we look for it aright. 

Before Coleridge delivered his lectures in London, Aug. Wilh. 
Schlegel had given his on Dramatic Art and Literature, in Vienna, 
in 1808, which were published under the title, " Vorlesungen iiber 
dramatische Kunst und Literatur," 1809. It was thought that Cole- 
ridge was indebted to him, by reason of certain striking similar- 
ities of view. But there's no evidence of such indebtedness. The 
evidence rather is that he was not indebted to Schlegel, and that 
evidence comes from Hazlitt, who disliked Coleridge. He says : 
" I myself heard the very same character of Hamlet from Cole- 
ridge before he went to Germany (that was in 1798) and when 
he had neither read nor could read a page of German." 

Schlegel's view of Hamlet is, in the main, that of Goethe and 
Coleridge, namely, to put it in the most general way, that Ham- 
let's not carrying out the injunction of his father's ghost was due 
to subjective causes, and not to objective obstacles. One sen- 
tence from Schlegel will be sufficient to show this. " The whole," 
he says, " is intended to show that a calculating consideration, 
which exhausts all the relations and possible consequences of a 
deed, must cripple the power of acting,'^ I would remark here, 
by the way, that it can never be truly said of any play of Shake- 
speare, that, to use Schlegel's expression, " the whole is intended 
to show " this, that, or the other. That would imply that his work 
moves under the condition of a notion of some kind ; that he 
started with an abstraction, and that that abstraction determined 
the movement of his work. Romeo and Juliet, we are told by 
a large number of prominent commentators, among them being 



HAMLET. 



219 



Gervinus, Ulrici, Coleridge, Hallam, Maginn, Mezieres, Taine, 
Tieck, " is intended to show " the bad consequences of excess, 
and the importance of moderation. 

Neither Goethe, Coleridge, nor Schlegel intimate, even, the 
objective theory in regard to the tragedy of Hamlet (the only 
theory consonant with the Shakespearian dramatic art), which 
Karl Werder has so elaborately developed in his "Vorlesungen 
iiber Shakespeare's Hamlet,"* Berlin, 1875. Horace Howard 
Furness pronounces Werder's volume on Hamlet the most note- 
worthy that has appeared in Germany, although its main idea is 
found in Klein's article in the Berliner Modenspiegel, 1846 ; and 
George Fletcher has distinctly indicated it, in a paragraph of his 
criticism on Romeo and JuUet, p. 288 of his " Studies of Shake- 
speare," London, 1847. I^ is to be regretted that this sagacious 
critic's "Studies of Shakespeare in the play of Hamlet, with 
observations on the criticism and the acting of that play," an- 
nounced as in preparation, at the end of the former work, never 
appeared. No English critic, perhaps, ever understood better the 
constitution of Shakespeare's Plays than did George Fletcher. 

The objective theory, briefly stated, is, that the obstacles to 
Hamlet's carrying out the injunction of the Ghost are wholly 
objective — that he has the power of acting, plenty of it, and all 
other powers in an eminent degree, required for what has been 
enjoined upon him to do, but he cannot achieve a true revenge 
by simply assassinating the King. He has a secret murder to 
deal with ; and that secret murder must first be unveiled to the 
court and the people, before a rational revenge is possible — 
before he can, in a true sense, fulfil the duty which has been 
imposed upon him by the ghost of his father. 

The theory of Hamlet's constitutional aversion to real activity , 
so strongly put by Coleridge, is pushed to the absurd by a writer 



* Dr. Horace Howard Furness has given, in his "New Variorum Edition of 
Hamlet," large extracts from Werder's " Vorlesungen," which embrace the 
entire dramatic action of Hamlet, as set forth by him. To these extracts 
students are referred. They are contained in Vol. II. pp. 354-371. 



220 HAMLET. 

in the Popular Science Monthly, for May, 1880, pp. 60-71. His 
article is entitled "The Impediment of Adipose — a celebrated 
case," the celebrated case being that of our friend, Hamlet, who, 
he says, is described with one dash of the pen : " He's fat and 
scant of breath." This is that " unknown quantity " which con- 
founded Schlegel, and which Goethe thought he had found in the 

lines : 

" The time is out of joint ; O cursed spite ! 
That ever I was born to set it right." 

Poor Hamlet (strange that nobody ever discovered it before) 
is weighted down with a non-executive or lymphatic temperament. 
By reason of his fatness and his scantness of breath, he lacks the 
energizing temperament, without which the brain is but a dumb 
mass of latent possibilities. His procrastination is the result of 
his "too too solid flesh." But for that burden of adipose sub- 
stance, he were simply the most active fellow in Europe. He is 
afflicted with a spherical obesity, as is indicated by his reply to 
the Ghost's " Remember me : " " Remember thee ! Ay, thou poor 
Ghost, while memory holds a seat in this distracted globed This 
obesity is also indicated in the speech of OpheHa : 

" He raised a sigh so piteous and profound 
As it did seem to shatter all his bidk^'' 

We are informed in a footnote that medical men regard fre- 
quent sighing as a sign of heart disease, caused by superfluous fat. 
OpheUa also speaks of him as " pale as his shirt " ; and paleness, 
the writer informs us, is a symptom of anaemic adipose. But she 
gives no hint that, like Falstaff, he has fallen away vilely. If such 
had been the case, it would have been the first thing to attract 
the attention of a young lady who believed one mad for the love 
of her. No ; neither love nor lunacy has told the least on his 
" bulk." 

In A. V. Sc. ii. 282, the King drinks " to Hamlet's better breath "/ 
and the queen-mother makes the exclamation, which is taken as 
the keynote of this adipose theory, " He's fat and scant of breath " ; 



HAMLET. 22.1 

and then adds, " Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows." 
And a little further on she says, "Come, let me wipe thy face." 
Can we not see, says the writer, the perspiration trickling over the 
broad, heavy cheeks, as we read these lines ? It was surely from 
experience that he spoke of sweating and grunting under a weary 
Hfe. 

Our attention is also called to the fact that when Hamlet takes 
his leisurely walk in the hall, this quiet exercise goes under no 
other name than a "breathing time"; and when his obesity is 
considered, how apt appears his reply to Osric : " Sir, I will walk 
here in the hall ; if it please his majesty, this is the breathing-time 
of day with me." 

The testimony as to the torpid condition of the Prince, conse- 
quent upon his fatness, and his scantness of breath, is not yet at 
an end. When Horatio says, "You will lose this wager, my lord," 
Hamlet replies, " I do not think so ; ... I shall win at the odds. 
But thou would'st not think how ill alVs here about my heart ; 
but it is no matter." Just such an answer, the writer informs us, 
as a person might make who was suffering from fatty degeneration ; 
the consideration of the unpleasant possibilities of the duel had 
brought the action of the heart almost to a standstill — the result 
of a chronic sluggish circulatory system. 

The consequences of poor Hamlet's unfortunate physical condi- 
tion is summed up by the writer in the following sentence : " The 
fine spirit, the clear insight, the keen reader of other men's thoughts 
is imprisoned in walls of adipose, and the desire for action dies 
out with the utterance of wise maxims, philosophic doubts, and 
morbid upbraidings of his own inertness." 

Any explanation of the man Hamlet, which proceeds upon the 
assumption of the theories of Goethe and Coleridge, must be as 
wide of the mark as is this, though it may not be so fleshly. And 
there'll be no end to such criticism until there's a general recogni- 
tion among Shakespeare scholars of what constitutes the real diffi- 
culty of the situation in which Hamlet is placed, — a difficulty 
entirely independent of his own intellectual atid spiritual tempera- 



222 HAMLET. 

merit, but a difficulty especially fitted to bring that temperament 
into the fullest play. And I would add that the reader of the 
tragedy whose interest is in the subjective Hamlet, rather than in 
the dramatic action, must recognize the fact that the subjective 
Hamlet — all the thoughts, and musings, and feelings, which so 
interest that reader — becomes doubly interesting when he knows 
its relation to the objective difficulty. 



THE WITCH AGENCY IN MACBETH. 



223 



THE WITCH AGENCY IN MACBETH 



THE two all-important things to be considered in the Tragedy 
of Macbeth, are, i, the relations of the Witches to Mac- 
beth, and 2, the relations of Lady Macbeth to Macbeth, in his 
career of ambition. 

The following bits of commentary express the usual understand- 
ing of the agency of the witches in Macbeth : " He is tempted," 
says Hazlitt, "to the commission of guilt by golden opportunities, 
by the instigations of his wife, and by prophetic warnings. Fate 
and metaphysical aid conspire against his virtue and his loyalty." 
"Shakespeare's witches," says Charles Lamb, " orignafe deeds of 
blood, and degifi bad impulses to men. P'rom the moment that 
their eyes first meet with Macbeth's, he is spell-bound. That 
meeting sways his destiny. He can never break the fascination." 

"The first thought of acceding to the throne," says Thomas 
AVhateley, " is suggested, and success in the attempt is promised, 
to Macbeth by the witches ; he is therefore represented as a man 
whose natural temper would have deterred Imn from such a design 
if he had not been immediately tempted and strongly impelled to 
it." 

In the first place it may be said that such views are inconsist' 
ent with the whole theory of the entire Shakespearian drama. 
Shakespeare never presents a character to us as a victim of fate 
at the outset. The fatalism of passion is exhibited in all his great 
tragedies ; but those characters through whom it is exhibited be- 
gin their several careers as free agents. A true dramatic interest 
demands this. As a great passion is evolved, it destroys more 
and more the power of self-assertion, and its victim is finally 



224 THE WITCH AGENCY IN MACBETH. 

swept passively and helplessly along. Only free agency is dra- 
matic. 

The weird sisters represent the night side of nature, the powers 
of evil which are ever attracted to the soul whose elective affini- 
ties favor such attraction. The devil visits those only who invite 
him in. "They who lack energy of goodness," says Dowden, 
"and drop into a languid neutrality between the antagonist spirit- 
ual forces of the world, must serve the devil as slaves, if they will 
not decide to serve God as freemen." 

The power of the weird sisters is nowhere in the tragedy exhib- 
ited as absolute, but always as relative. It is shown to depend 
upon what in a man's soul has affinities for that power. Where 
these affinities do not exist, their power is nought. But where 
they do exist, these outside evil forces are as quick to respond to 
them as Sin and Death in Milton's "Paradise Lost" are repre- 
sented to have been. Even before the newly-created pair sinned, 
before the connatural forces started in them and were realized in 
act. Sin is made to say to Death, as they sit together within the 
gates of hell, " Methinks I feel new strength within me rise, wings 
growing, and dominion given me large beyond this deep ; what- 
ever draws me on, or sympathy, or some connatural force, power- 
ful at greatest distance to unite, with secret amity, things of like 
kind, by secretest conveyance. Thou, my Shade inseparable, must 
with me along. . . . Nor can I miss the way, so strongly 
drawn by this new-felt attraction and instinct. Whom thus the 
meagre Shadow answered soon : Go, whither Fate, and inclina- 
tion strong, leads thee." 

(It should be remarked here that Milton obeys the higher law 
in his grammar, as Shakespeare so often does; "fate" and "in- 
clination strong" not constituting a compound idea, inclination 
strong being fate, when not controlled, he uses with these two sub- 
jects the singular verb " leads.") 

" Go, whither Fate, and inclination strong, leads thee. I shall 
not lag behind, nor err the way, thou leading. ... So saying, 
with dehght he snuffed the smell of mortal change on earth . . . 



THE WITCH AGENCY IN MACBETH. 



225 



and upturned his nostrils wide into the murky air,* sagacious f of 
his quarry from so far." 

Strikingly parallel with this representation of Sin and Death (so 
quick scented, so sagacious of their quarry), is the representation 
of the weird sisters. In their first meeting, in the opening scene 
of the tragedy, it is intimated that while Macbeth is serving his 
king, in bravely fighting his country's foes, the promptings of a 
regicidal ambition had already set in. The weird sisters, with 
whom "fair is foul, and foul is fair," scent from afar his evil pro- 
pensities. They are not the first to tempt Macbeth, but Mac- 
beth is the first to tempt them to tempt. He tempts them to 
stimulate what has originated within himself. 

"ACT I. 

Scene I. — An open place. Thunder and Lightning. 

Enter three Witches. 

1 Witch. When shall we three meet again 
In thunder, lightning, or in rain? 

2 Witch. When the hurlyburly's done. 
When the battle's lost and won. 

3 Witch. That will be ere the set of sun. 

1 Witch. Where the place ? 

2 Witch. Upon the heath. 

3 Witch. There to meet with Macbeth." 

This last speech indicates that they have already experienced, 
to use the language of Milton's Sin, a " sympathy or some con- 
natural force, powerful at greatest distance to unite, with secret 
amity, things of hke kind, by secretest conveyance." 

" I Witch. I come, Graymalkin. 
All. Paddock calls : — Anon. — 



* "Murky air" here means what "mirksome air" means in Spenser, "Faerie 
Queene," I. v. 28, infected or tainted. It reminds of " the fog and filthy air" 
through which the weird sisters in Macbeth hover. 

t Sagacious, quick of scent. 



226 THE WITCH AGENCY IN MACBETH. 

Fair is foul, and foul is fair : 

Hover through the fog and filthy air." 

[Witches vanish. 

(The several witch scenes are all accompanied with thunder 
and lightning; and it should be noted here, that in no other 
Play has Shakespeare so represented the natural world as reflect- 
ing the moral world.) 

The following passages are examples of this : 

Lady Macbeth, after receiving her husband's letter, says : 

' ' The raven himself is hoarse 
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan 
Under my battlements." — A. I. Sc. v. 39-41. 

When the " gracious " Duncan, who " hath borne his faculties so 
meek," and Banquo, whose character throughout shows that he 
has kept his heart with all diligence, approach Macbeth's castle, 
Duncan says : 

" This castle hath a pleasant seat ; the air 
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself 
Unto our gentle senses." 

Banquo, in his reply, shows that his pure heart has made him a 
susceptible observer of nature : 

" This guest of summer, 
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve, 
By his loved mansionry, that the heaven's breath 
Smells wooingly here : no jutty, frieze, 
Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird 
Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle : 
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed 
The air is delicate." — A. I. Sc. vi. 1-9. 

In the early morning, after the Porter has admitted Macduff 
and Lenox to the court of the casde, and Macbeth enters, having 
been aroused, as they suppose, by the knocking, Lenox says, be- 
fore the murder has been discovered : 



THE WITCH AGENCY IN MACBETH. 22/ 

" The night has been unruly : where we lay, 
Our chimneys were blown down, and, as they say, 
Lamentings heard i' the air, strange screams of death. 
And prophesying with accents terrible 
Of dire combustion and confused events 
New hatched to the woeful time : the obscure bird 
Clamoured the livelong night : some say, the earth 
Was feverous and did shake. 

Macb. 'Twas a rough night. 

Len. My young remembrance cannot parallel 
A fellow to it." — A. II. Sc. iii. 59-67- 

With reference to the same night, is the talk between Ross and 
an old man, after the murder is known : 

" Old M. Threescore and ten I can remember well : 
Within the volume of which time, I have seen 
Hours dreadful, and things strange ; but this sore night 
Hath trifled former knowings. 

Rosse. Ah, good father, 

Thou seest, the heavens, as troubled with man's act, 
Threaten his bloody stage : by the clock, His day, 
And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp : 
Is't night's predominance, or the day's shame, 
That darkness does the face of earth intomb, 
When living light should kiss it? 

Old M. 'Tis unnatural, 

Even like the deed that's done. On Tuesday last, 
A falcon, tow'ring in her pride of place, 
Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd. 

Rosse. And Duncan's horses, (a thing most strange and certain,) 
Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race, 
Turn'd wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out. 
Contending 'gainst obedience, as they would 
Make war with mankind. 

Old M. 'Tis said, they eat each other. 

Rosse. They did so, to the amazement of mine eyes 
That look'd upon 't." — A. II. Sc. iv. 1-20. 



228 THE WITCH AGENCY IN MACBETH 

Macbeth says to Lady Macbeth, with reference to the murder 
of Banquo and his son Fleance, for which he has arranged, 

" Ere the bat hath flown 
His cloister'd flight, ere to black Hecate's summons 
The shard-borne beetle, with his drowsy hums, 
Hath rung night's yawning peal. 
There shall be done a deed of dreadful note. 

Lady M. What's to be done? 

Macb. Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, 
Till thou applaud the deed. Come, seeling night, 
Skarf up the tender eye of pitiful day ; 
And, with thy bloody and invisible hand, 
Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond 
Which keeps me pale! — Light thickens; and the crow 
Makes wing to the rooky wood ; 
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse ; 
Whiles night's black agents to their preys do rouse. 

— A. HL Sc. ii. 40-53. 

"We see," says Fanny Kemble, "the violet-coloured sky, we 
feel the soft intermitting wind of evening, we hear the solemn 
lullaby of the dark fir-forest, the homeward flight of the bird sug- 
gests the sweetest images of rest and peace ; and, coupled and 
contrasting with the gradual falling of the dim veil of twilight over 
the placid face of nature, the remote horror of ' the deed of fear- 
ful note,' about to desecrate the solemn repose of the approaching 
night, gives to these harmonious and lovely lines a wonderful effect 
of mingled beauty and terror." * 

And just before the murderers surprise Banquo, the first mur- 
derer says : 

" The west yet glimmers with some streaks of day : 
Now spurs the lated traveller apace 
To gain the timely inn, and near approaches 
The subject of our watch." — A. III. Sc. iii. 5-8. 



* Macviillan's Magazine, May, 1867. 



THE WITCH A GENC V /A" MA CBE TH. 229 

The poet appears to have been so filled with the spirit of his 
theme, that that spirit radiated upon all the aspects of the natural 
world, and was reflected therefrom. " The west yet glimmers with 
some streaks of dayy In the moral world which he is represent- 
ing, there are yet some glimmerings of moral light : but these 
glimmerings are soon to be wholly swallowed up in moral dark- 
ness. And it is to be remarked, too, that the murder of Banquo 
and the appearance of his ghost at the banquet, marks the point 
where all light goes out for both Macbeth and his queen. 

To return from this digression : Shakespeare has taken pains 
to make clear what he meant by the weird sisters. In the solil- 
oquy which Lady Macbeth utters, after receiving her husband's 
letter, she says (A. I. Sc. v. 41-51) : " Come, you spirits that tend 
on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to 
the toe, top-full of direst cruelty ! make thick my blood ; stop up 
the access and passage to remorse, that no compunctious visitings 
of nature shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between the effect 
and it ! Come to my woman's breasts, and take my milk for gall, 
you murth'ring ministers, wherever in your sightless substances 
you wait on nature's mischief J " 

(" Sightless substances " : " sightless " is used objectively, in the 
sense of " invisible " ; " substances " means " essences " ; sightless 
substances, invisible essences. "Sightless" is again used in an 
objective sense, in A. I. Sc. vii. 23 : " Sightless couriers of the 
air.") 

Here, in fact, is brought out what we must understand by the 
weird sisters. They are the impersonations of the '' spirits that 
tend on mortal thoughts," of the " sightless substances that wait 
on nature's mischief," that respond to the elective affinities of 
man's soul. They are objective entities, to stand against which, 
St. Paul tells us, we must " put on the whole armor of God." 
"For," he says, "we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but 
against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the 
darkness of this world." — Eph. vi. 11, 12. 

As an exposition of the spiritual constitution of things, what a 



230 THE WITCH AGENCY IN MACBETH. 

reality Christianity must have been to such a soul as Shakespeare's ! 
A reality to be confirmed by spiritual experience, not a creed to 
be intellectually believed. And it is quite evident to one who 
reads Shakespeare aright, that the Christian miracles did not 
trouble him very much, and that he had not to resort to the theory 
of a suspension of the laws of nature, nor make them acceptable 
to the intellect, as some theologians of the present day are trying 
to do, even Canon Farrar, in his " Life of Christ " (Vol. I. pp. 
337 et seq., of Amer. ed.). 

In All's Well that Ends Well, Lafeu says (A. I. Sc. iii.) : " They 
say miracles are past ; and we have our philosophical persons, to 
make modern {i.e., common, ordinary] and familiar, things su- 
pernatural and causeless.* Hence is it that we make trifles of 
terrors, ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge, when we 
should submit ourselves to an unknown fear. Why, 'tis the rarest 
argument of wonder that hath shot out in our latter times." 

Gervinus remarks (Vol. II. p. 167 of his "Shakespeare Com- 
mentaries ") : " We need hardly tell our readers whom we imagine 
to be more and more initiated into the mind of our poet, that his 
spirit-world signifies nothing but the visible embodiment of the 
images conjured up by a lively fancy, and that their apparition 
only takes place with such as have this excitable imagination" [!]. 

The greatest poet of the race was the greatest by reason of his 
exceptional nearness to the essential world — his abnormal spiritual 
sensitiveness brought him into a more intimate relationship with 
invisible potencies. His soul was more closely linked with the 
great vital and spiritual forces of the world, and was, through this 
means, admitted further into Nature's penetralia than is permitted 
to the mere discursive understanding, however great the orbit in 
which it may move. The discursive understanding may even 
tend to divorce the soul from those great vital and spiritual forces, 



* Coleridge remarks: "Shakespeare, inspired, as it might seem, with all 
knowledge, here uses the word ' causeless ' in its strict philosophical sense; — 
cause being truly predicable only of phenomena, that is, things natural, and 
not of noH/nena, or things supernatural." 



THE WITCH AGENCY IN MACBETH. 23 1 

in whose current alone it can be conducted to the kingdom of 
essential truth. 

In the next scene in which the weird sisters appear, the 3d of 
the I St Act, as Macbeth enters with Banquo, he says: "So foul 
and fair a day I have not seen." The literal significance of this 
speech is evident enough : namely, that the day has been foul in 
respect to the weather, and fair in respect to the battle in which 
they have engaged. It has been understood, too, as referring to 
the varying fortune of the day of battle, before victory was finally 
achieved by the king's forces under Macbeth and Banquo. But 
which is the true literal meaning is unimportant. The important 
thing to be considered is, what was, no doubt, intended to be i7iti- 
maied by the speech. The same epithets are used as are used in 
the last speech of the witches, in the first scene : " Fair is foul, and 
foul is fair," and the intimation evidently intended is, that a rela- 
tionship has been established, as Coleridge has noted, between the 
powers of evil and Macbeth's soul — a relationship, however, which 
it is yet in Macbeth's power to sever. It is important to consider 
this : his free agency is not yet surrendered ; and it rests with him 
whether he will assert it, or resign himself to their destructive in- 
fluence. It is also important to consider that the establishment of 
the relationship has been primarily due to Macbeth himself, and not 
to outside influence. It has originated in his own heart. (" Keep 
thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.") 
Banquo is the first to notice the witches, and in his first speech to 
them, and in his subsequent speeches, he shov/s that no magnetic 
current has been established between them and himself. In Mac- 
beth's speech, only his imperious nature is manifested, as he yet 
knows not the relations to himself of the strange beings he is ad- 
dressing : " Speak, if you can, what you are? " The "all hail" of 
the 3d witch, " All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be Kiyig hereafter ! " 
shows that they have had a look into his mind's construction, and 
have discovered there what they can stimulate into regicide and 
moral destruction. The speech of Banquo indicates the effect of 
this •' all hail " upon Macbeth's mind, and the no eff'ect upon his 



232 THE WITCH AGENCY IN MACBETH. 

own : " Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear things that 
do sound so fair? " He starts because the future fulfilment of the 
secret and wicked desire of his heart has been so mysteriously 
proclaimed. But there's nothing within the heart of Banquo to 
cause him to start ; and he continues in words which indicate that 
he has kept his heart with all diligence. One character serves 
admirably as a foil to the other. '' In the name of truth," Banquo 
continues, " are ye fantastical \i.e., creatures of fantasy or imagi- 
nation], or that indeed which outwardly ye show? My noble 
partner you greet with present grace and great prediction of noble 
having and of royal hope, that he seems wrapt withal." (" Present 
grace," "great prediction of noble having," and "royal hope" 
refer respectively to the ist, 2d, and 3d " all hail" of the witches.) 
Banquo continues : " to me you speak not. If you can look into 
the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will 
not, speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear your favours nor 
your hate." * 

(There's certainly nothing in this demand of Banquo, in regard 
to himself, which supports what Schlegel calls "the ambitious 
curiosity which prompted him to wish to know his glorious descen- 
dants." The poet evidently meant the demand to indicate the 
unpossessedness (to use Coleridge's word) of Banquo's mind, which 
is contrasted with iki^possessedness oi Macbeth's mind. He neither 
begs nor fears the witches' favors nor their hate.) 

In reply to Banquo's command to speak to him, the witches 
answer : ^^ ist Witch, Lesser than Macbeth, and greater. 2d Witch. 
Not so happy \i.e., fortunate, Latin felix\ yet much happier. 
3d Witch. Thou shalt get kings, tho' thou be none : so all hail, 
Macbeth and Banquo ! ist Witch. Banquo and Macbeth, all hail ! 
Macbeth. Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more," etc. It is 
plainly indicated what is back of this eager insistence on the part 
of Macbeth, that these imperfect speakers " stay.'' Without know- 



* Note the respective construction : " favours " is respective to " beg," and 
hate " to " fear." He neither begs their favors nor fears their hate. 



THE WITCH AGENCY IN MACBETH. 233 

ing anything of the nature or trustworthiness of the strange beings 
before him, he is ready to gulp all he can draw from them. " Fere 
libenter homines id quod volunt, credunt," says Julius Caesar 
(B. G. III. 18), who rarely turns aside to express an abstract 
truth. " Men very readily believe what they desire to be true." 
But Macbeth's eager insistence is not at all caught by Banquo. 
He quietly remarks, when the witches vanish : *' The earth hath 
bubbles, as the water has, and these are of them. Whither are 
they vanished ? Macbeth. Into the air: and what seemed cor- 
poral, melted as breath into the wind. Would they had stayed ! " 
Note this last speech, '^ Would they had stayed!'' He is disap- 
pointed that he has not heard more of what so deeply concerns 
him. But Banquo simply says, indicating that there is nothing in 
his own breast to be aroused by what he has heard, " Were such 
things here as we do speak about? Or have we eaten on the 
insane root that takes the reason prisoner?" But Macbeth, 
wholly absorbed and inflamed by what he has heard, continues, 
without replying to what Banquo has just asked, "Your children 
shall be kings." Note, too, that Banquo makes nothing of Mac- 
beth's saying, "your children shall be kings." But Macbeth adds, 
with great satisfaction, to Banquo's remark ("you shall be king,") : 
"And thane of Cawdor, too; went it not so?" Banquo rephes 
most indifferently, and in an off-hand way, " To the selfsame tune 
and words. Who's here ? " 

That Macbeth has tempted the witches to tempt him, that they, 
in return, have set about stimulating and inflaming what has origi- 
nated within his own breast, is evident enough from the scene up 
to this point. But the evidence is enforced by what follows. 
Upon Banquo's question, "Who's here," Rosse and Angus enter; 
and after they inform Macbeth of the joy with which the King has 
received the news of his victory, and of the praises which have 
been showered upon his valor, and present their royal master's 
thanks, Rosse adds : " And for an earnest of a greater honor, he 
bade me, from him, call thee thane of Cawdor ; in which addition, 
hail, most worthy thane ! For it is thine." This almost immedi- 



234 ^^^ WITCH AGENCY IN MACBETH. 

ate fulfilment of one of the salutations of the witches, " Hail to 
thee, thane of Cawdor " (and it must be inferred that they got 
their knowledge by being invisibly present at the time when the 
King commanded his ministers to pronounce the traitorous thane 
of Cawdor's immediate death, and with his former title to greet 
Macbeth, and thus were able to convey to Macbeth the informa- 
tion ahead of Rosse and Angus), is to Macbeth an assurance that 
the prophetic salutation, " All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be King 
hereafter," will also be fulfilled \ what Coleridge called the con- 
catenating tendency of the imagination is fostered by the sudden 
coincidence ; and he soliloquizes : " Glamis, and thane of Caw- 
dor ! the greatest is behind." And then thanking Rosse and 
Angus for their pains, he says, excitedly, to Banquo, " Do you not 
hope your children shall be kings, when those that gave the thane 
of Cawdor to me, promised no less to them?" 

The reply of Banquo, under the circumstances, makes him 
appear, as do, indeed, his speeches on all occasions, as the very 
spokesman of Macbeth's good angels, as the intermediate agency 
between them and Macbeth's soul, whose evil suggestions the 
powers of darkness are inciting. To Macbeth's question, " Do 
you not hope your children shall be kings, when those that gave 
the thane of Cawdor to me, promised no less to them," he replies, 
as one who is proof against the wiles of evil, '' That trusted home 
{i.e., fully, unreservedly trusted] might yet enkindle you unto 
the crown, besides the thane of Cawdor. But 'tis strange : and 
oftentimes to win us to our harm, the instruments of darkness 
tell us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betray us in deepest 
consequence y 

The entire moral of the tragedy is expressed in this speech.* 
Banquo appears to have been specially designed by the poet, as 
a counter-agency to the agency of the weird sisters (if that can be 



* Of like import is the following stanza from Wordsworth's " Peter Bell 
*' I know you, potent Spirits, well. 
How, with the feeling and the sense 
Playing, ye govern foes or friends, 
Yoked to your will, for fearful ends." 



THE WITCH AGENCY IN MACBETH. 235 

called a counter-agency which proves entirely ineffective) ; or, as 
a support or encouragement to Macbeth's free agency, if he choose 
to assert it. 

But the aside speech of Macbeth which follows, shows how 
impervious he is to any saving influence, by reason of his all- 
absorbing desire of sovereignty. He disregards what Banquo 
says, and soliloquizes : " Two truths are told, as happy prologues to 
the swelling act of the imperial theme." And then he interposes, 
" I thank you, gentlemen," as a bit of merely politic courtesy, and 
continues : " This supernatural soliciting \i.e., incitement] can- 
not be ill, cannot be good : if ill, why hath it given me earnest of 
success commencing in a truth?'" To this question Banquo has 
already given a wholesome answer,, which he disregarded. He con- 
tinues : " I am thane of Cawdor : if good, why do I yield to that 
suggestion whose horrid image doth unfix my hair, and make my 
seated heart knock at my ribs, against the use of nature ? Present 
fears are less than horrible imaginings : my thought, whose murder 
yet is but fantastical, shakes so my single state of man, that function 
is smothered in surmise, and nothing is but what is not " (A. I. 
Sc. iii. 137-142). 

Here we have the first indication of that keenly imaginative 
temperament of Macbeth which will play so important a part in 
his murderous career, which will deceive his wife as to its true 
character, and which has misled many commentators. It is what 
will, at first, in his murderous career, shake his fell purpose, and 
may be easily mistaken for what Lady Macbeth calls " compunc- 
tious visitings of nature " ; but a genuine compunction there is no 
evidence that he experiences : and his " horrible imaginings " are, 
in fact, only one mode in which his selfishness manifests itself. 
He has selfish fears from external dangers, intensified by a mor- 
bidly active imagination. 

This is shown in his soliloquy (A. I. Sc. vii.) : " If it were done 
when 'tis done," that is (the word " done " having a double appli- 
cation), if the deed I am contemplating were done with, and 
there would be nothing more of it, after it is committed, " then 



236 THE WITCH AGENCY IN MACBETH 

'twere well." " It were done quickly," without any hesitation and 
without any misgivings, "if the assassination could trammel up 
the consequence," i.e., could catch up, as in a net, could shut out 
all bad results to myself (in this world, as the following lines 
show), "we'ld jump [risk] the life to come." This is explicit 
enough. The consequences of the act to his soul are nothing to 
him. The outside consequences of the act alone cause him to 
hesitate. Surely there are no moral scruples whatever exhibited 
in this soliloquy, but only selfish " imaginings." 

To return from this digression to the scene before us, the 3d 
of the I St Act. Banquo remarks, as Macbeth soliloquizes, " Look 
how our partner's rapt." Macbeth continues his soliloquy : " If 
chance will have me king, why chance may crown me, without 
my stir." Here's an implied admission (even supposing the weird 
sisters to be the original instigators) that he has received no war- 
rant, no suggestion, of any kind, from without, to murder his King, 
in order that the " All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be King hereafter," 
be realized. Banquo remarks upon his rapt condition : " New 
honours come upon him, like our strange garments, cleave not to 
their mould but with the aid of use." But Macbeth still continues 
in soliloquy : " Come what come may, time and the hour runs 
thro' the roughest day." And then Banquo breaks in upon his 
musing : " Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon [await] your leisure. 
Macb. Give me your favour [that is, indulgence] : my dull 
brain was wrought with things forgotten." On this speech Cole- 
ridge well remarks : " Lost in the prospective of his guilt, he turns 
round alarmed lest others may suspect what is passing in his own 
mind, and instantly vents the lie of ambition : ' My dull brain was 
wrought with things forgotten ; ' and immediately after pours forth 
the promising courtesies of a usurper in intention : ' Kind gentle- 
men, your pains are registered where every day I turn the leaf to 
read them.' " Then, addressing Banquo, " Let us toward the 
King. Think upon what hath chanced, and, at more time, the 
interim having weighed it, let us speak our free hearts each to 
other." 



THE WITCH AGENCY IN MACBETH. 



237 



The next scene wherein the witches appear, is the 5 th of the 
3d Act. " A Heath. Thunder. Enter the three Witches, meeting 
Hecate.'' Hecate, in her reproof of the witches, represents herself 
as the mistress of their charms, and the secret contriver of all 
harms. She commands them to meet her in the morning at the 
pit of Acheron, where Macbeth will come to know his destiny. 
(By " the pit of Acheron " must be meant some secret and gloomy 
cavern near Macbeth's castle.) Hecate continues : " I am for the 
air ; this night I'll spend unto a dismal and a fatal end : great 
business must be wrought ere noon : upon the corner of the moon 
there hangs a vaporous drop profound : I'll catch it ere it come 
to ground : and that, distilled by magic sleights, shall raise such 
artificial sprites as by the strength of their illusion shall draw him 
on to his confusion [destruction] : he shall spurn fate, scorn death, 
and bear his hopes 'bove wisdom, grace, and fear : and you all 
know security is mortals' chiefest enemy." ("Security" is here 
used in a subjective sense, and means as much as " recklessness," 
such recklessness as is expressed in the preceding lines, spurning 
fate, scorning death, and bearing hopes above wisdom, grace, and 
fear. When Macbeth is fairly started upon his murderous career, 
the " horrible "imaginings " which deterred him at the outset, give 
place to the recklessness characterized in the speech of Hecate.) 

In the banquet scene, the 4th of the 3d Act, after the guests 
have been unceremoniously dismissed by Lady Macbeth, by reason 
of her husband's overwrought condition, consequent upon the 
appearance of the ghost of the murdered Banquo, he says to her : 
" I will to-morrow, and betimes I will, to the weird sisters : more 
shall they speak, for now I am bent to know, by the worst means, 
the worst. For mine own good all causes shall give way : I am in 
blood stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more, returning were 
as tedious as go o'er : strange things I have in head that will to 
hand, which i?iust be acted ere they 7?tay be scanned:' 

(The last sentence indicates the stage he has reached since he 
first started upon his career. There's to be no more scanning of 
consequences. He is now in the firm grip of Fate, The free 



238 THE WITCH AGENCY IN MACBETH. 

agency which he might have exercised at the outset, when he 
received the wise caution of Banquo, he has forfeited ; his self- 
determination is lost ; and he is now given over to the powers of 
evil. And it should be noted that this speech is in the scene be- 
fore that in which Hecate appears, and says " he shall spurn fate, 
scorn death, and bear his hope 'bove wisdom, grace and fear." 
She only hai'ps what is already in his mi^id a7id purpose. And this 
is true throughout the relations of the weird sisters to Macbeth. 
They originate nothing. This is the great fact to be noted in the 
Play ; but it has not been noted by many of the commentators.) 

Lady Macbeth makes no other reply to the speech of her hus- 
band, last quoted, '' I am in blood stepp'd in so far," etc., than 
" you lack the season of all natures, sleep." She is broken. The 
Lady Macbeth of the early part of the play is no more. The 
strong will, at first untrammelled by any considerations of conse- 
quences, by any of her husband's "horrible imaginings," gives 
place to remorse (capabilities of which, it becomes evident, she 
possessed in a high degree ; but they were kept down by the terrific 
will which swept everything before it — a will in the service of a 
wifely sympathy with her husband's overmastering desire for sove- 
reignty, and not of an independent ambition ; and 'when that de- 
sire of her husband is realized, and she sees what its reahzation 
has brought with it, and also discovers that he is of a different 
nature from what she represents him to be, in the speech she utters 
after receiving his letter, her womanly nature (and her nature is 
most womanly) succumbs to the violation to which it is subjected. 

The next witch scene is the ist of the 4th Act: ''A cavern. 

hi the middle, a boiling cauldron. Thunder. Enter the three 

witches. 

'* I Witch. Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd. 

2 Witch. Thrice, and once the hedge-pig whin'd. 

3 Witch. Harpier cries. — 'Tis time, 'tis time. 
I Witch. Round about the cauldron go ; 

In the poison'd entrails throw. 
Toad, that under cold stone, 
Days and nights has thirty-one 



THE WITCH AGENCY IN MACBETH 239 

Swelter'd venom sleeping got, 
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot. 

All. Double, double, toil and trouble ; 
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. 

2 Witch. Fillet of a fenny snake, 
In the cauldron boil and bake : 
Eye of newt, and toe of frog, 
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog. 
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting, 
Lizard's \(tg, and owlet's wing, 

For a charm of powerful trouble ; 
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. 

All. Double, double, toil and trouble ; 
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. 

3 Witch. Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf; 
Witches' mummy, maw and gulf 

Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark ; 
Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark ; 
Liver of blaspheming Jew ; 
Gall of goat, and slips of yew 
Silver'd in the moon's eclipse ; 
Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips ; 
Finger of birth-strangled babe 
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab, 
Make the gruel thick and slab ; 
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron, 
For the ingredients of our cauldron. 

All. Double, double, toil and trouble ; 
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. 

2 Witch. Cool it with a baboon's blood, 
Then the charm is firm and good." 

The loathsome ingredients of the hell-broth they are brewing to 
work the charm which will add fresh fuel to the sin-inflamed soul 
of Macbeth, and draw him on to his destruction, symbolize the 
relationship of these demons with the night side of nature — with 
the powers of darkness : poisoned entrails, the toad's sweltered 
venom, fillet of a fenny snake, maw and gulf of the ravined salt-sea 



/ 



240 THE WITCH AGENCY IN MACBETH. 

shark, liver of blaspheming Jew, gall of goat, slips of yew slivered 
in the moon's eclipse, finger of birth -strangled babe ditch- 
delivered by a drab, and other revolting things. 

Just before Macbeth enters, the 2d witch scents the approach- 
ing prey, and, as may be imagined, upturns her nostril wide into 
the murky air, sagacious of her quarry, and exclaims : " By the 
pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes. Open 
locks, whoever knocks." A speech of deep significance, revealing, 
as it does, the nature of these horrible hags — their magnetic sen- 
sitiveness to whatever is akin to their own evil nature — their 
readiness to open to every one who knocks. *^ Knock, and it 
shall be opened unto you," is even more true where the determin- 
ation of any one's nature is toward evil than where it is toward 
good. 

What follows, in this scene, prefigures, in an equivocal way, 
what has become the fated career which Macbeth has to run, to 
its bitter end — fated, because he has not held on to himself. 
He has lost his free will and has drifted into the irresistible cur- 
rent of evil forces. 

The several apparitions which are summoned to address him, 
are the "artificial sprites" which Hecate, in the 5th Scene of the 
3d Act, says shall, " by the strength of their illusion, draw him on 
to his confusion." 

The first apparition, "an armed head," is generally understood 
as prefiguring Macbeth's head, cut off and brought to Malcolm by 
Macduff. Macbeth begins to address it with the words, " Tell 
me, thou unknown power, — " but is interrupted by the ist witch : 
^^ He knows thy thought: hear his speech, but say thou nought." 
Here it is again indicated that everything originates in Macbeth's 
own mind. " ist App. Macbeth ! Macbeth ! Macbeth ! beware 
Macduff; beware the thane of Fife. Dismiss me : enough. {De- 
scends.'] Macb, Whate'er thou art, for thy good caution thanks ; 
thou hast harped my fear aright : but one word more, — ist Witch. 
He will not be commanded : here's another, more potent than the 
first. Thunder. 2d Apparition : a bloody child.'' The bloody 



THE WITCH AGENCY IN MACBETH. 24 1 

child represents Macduff untimely ripped from his mother's womb, 
and is, in the words of the ist witch, " more potent than the first," 
that is, Macbeth. " 2d App. Be bloody, bold, and resolute ; " just 
what Macbeth has already determined to be : " laugh to scorn the 
powers of man, for none of woman born shall harm Macbeth. 
Macb. Then live, Macduff: what need I fear of thee? But yet 
I'll make assurance double sure, and take a bond of fate : thou 
shalt not live ; that I may tell pale-hearted fear it Hes, and sleep 
in spite of thunder." 

It should be especially noted that after the witches vanish, Mac- 
beth learns from Lenox that Macduff has fled to England. This 
fact the witches must be supposed to know, and they give Mac- 
beth a gratuitous warning against Macduff, and thus secure for 
themselves his faith in their guardianship of him ; a gratuitous 
warning, because, Macduff being out of Macbeth's reach, the latter 
cannot make assurance double sure, by putting his dreaded enemy 
out of the way. This is a very shrewd dodge of the witches. 
Their warning is not for his safety, but for his destruction. 

" Thunder. Third Apparition : a child crowned, with a tree in 
his handy This child prefigures the King's son, Malcolm, who, as 
he advances against Macbeth, will order every soldier hew him 
down a bough and bear it before him to Dunsinane, thereby to 
shadow the number of his forces, and make Macbeth's spies err 
in report of them. 

^^jd App. Be Hon-mettled, proud, and take no care who chafes, 
who frets, or where conspirers are ; Macbeth shall never van- 
quished be until great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill shall 
come against him." 

Macbeth's confidence in the witches' protecting power has been 
strengthened by the predictions of the ist and 2d Apparitions, 
who have warned him against the man whom he already knew was 
to be especially feared, and assured him that no one of woman 
bom could harm him. The prediction of the 3d Apparition, that 
he never shall be vanquished until great Birnam wood to high 
Dunsinane hill shall come against him, clinches his confidence, as 



242 THE WITCH AGENCY IN MACBETH. 

his speech in reply shows : " That will never be : who can impress 
the forest, [that is, press the forest into military service], bid 
the tree unfix his earth-bound root?" But now that he is assured 
that he " shall live the lease of nature, pay his breath to time and 
mortal custom," he is eager to know whether their predictions in 
regard to Banquo will be fulfilled : " Yet my heart throbs to know 
one thing : tell me, — if your art can tell so much, — shall Ban- 
quo's issue ever reign in this kingdom?" When he is told to 
" seek to know no more," his haughty and arbitrary imperiousness 
denounces them roundly, which they repay with " a show of eight 
Kings, the last with a glass in his hand : Banquo's Ghost follow- 
ing ; " — not the Banquo as he knew him in life, but the Banquo, 
blood-boltered, as he appeared to him in the banquet scene : 
" the blood-boltered Banquo smiles upon me, and points at them 
[the Kings] for his." 

The witches are gleeful over their victim, whose eyeballs have 
been seared by what has been shown him. The first witch says : 
" Come, sisters, cheer we up his sprights, and show the best of our 
delights : I'll charm the air to give a sound, while you perform 
your antic round, that this great king may kindly say our duties 
did his welcome pay." 

There's a hellish sarcasm intended in the word " kindly." And 
note especially the last sentence uttered by the witches, in the 
tragedy : " Our duties did his welcome pay." 

It expresses implicitly all that has been set forth, in regard to the 
relation of the witches to Macbeth. He was the first to welco7ne 
them as guests to his bosom, and they have done their duty by 
him, as agents of the devil. They have originated nothing within 
him. They have but hai-ped what he has previously desired and 
premeditated, and have thus stimulated his evil propensities into 
acts. In this last scene in which they appear, they urge him on in 
his career by flattering equivocations, and to these he will cling to 
the bitter end. Each in turn proves a false reliance ; and, finally, 
he drops into the abyss which is yawning to receive him. 

Verily the tragedy affords no support to the interpretation that 



THE WITCH AGENCY IN MACBETH. 243 

the witehes are the original instigators. If this interpretation were 
the true one, if Macbeth were a man ^' whose natural temper," 
according to one of his interpreters, "■ would have deterred him " 
from the murder of his King, and if he were subjected at the out- 
set, to an irresistible objective instigation (his free agency being 
destroyed by that instigation), to do such violence to his better 
nature, the tragedy would have no true dramatic merit, and should 
be consigned to the limbo of the so-called Heroic Plays of the 
Restoration Drama. 



244 I'ADV MACBETH' S RELATIONS TO MACBETH. 



LADY MACBETH'S RELATIONS TO 
MACBETH. 



IN the foregoing chapter, it is shown that Macbeth welcomed 
the Witches as guests to his bosom, and that they did their duty 
by him as agents of evil. They originated nothing within him, 
they but harped what he had previously desired and meditatedy 
and thus stimulated his evil propensities into acts. In the last 
scene in which they appear, the ist of the 4th Act, they urge him 
on in his career by flattering equivocations, each of which proves 
a false reliance ; but he clings to them, to the bitter end, and 
finally drops into the abyss which is yawning to receive him. 

It can be as plainly read that the part played by Lady Macbeth 
was in the service of a wifely sympathy with her husband's o'er- 
masteriiig desire for sovereignty and not of an independent ambi- 
tion ; a desire with which, so far as the evidence goes, in the play, 
she had nothing originally to do. 

Macbeth first reveals himself, after his victory over his country's 
foes, before he returns to his own castle, there to be sustained and 
urged on to the killing of his King, by his devoted wife, whose 
powerful and untrammelled will is set against his trammelled will 
— trammelled, not by compunctious visitings, as is supposed by 
many commentators and readers, but by considerations of conse- 
quences ; not of consequences to his own soul (for he goes so far 
as to say that he'd risk the life to come, if his ambition could be 
realized with outward safety to himself) . 

After his victory, when he and Banquo return to the palace, the 
amiable King expresses, in the strongest terms, his gratitude for 
the great services which his two generals, Macbeth and Banquo, 



LaDV MACBETH' B RELATIONS TO MACBETH. 245 

have rendered him. Macbeth replies in a speech informed appar- 
ently with the very soul of loyalty, but in which hypocrisy can no 
further go — an hypocrisy involving, under the circumstances, the 
basest dishonor, and the blackest ingratitude : " The service and 
the loyalty I owe, in doing it, pays itself [that is, is its own 
reward] : Your highness' part is to receive our duties ; and our 
duties are to your throne and state, children and servants ; which 
do but what they should, by doing everything safe toward your 
love and honor." The meaning of which is plain enough, if it be 
not considered too curiously. Duncan replies : *' Welcome hither : 
I have begun to plant thee, and will labour to make thee full of 
growing. Noble Banquo that hast no less deserved, nor must be 
known no less to have done so, let me infold thee and hold thee 
to my heart." 

How genuine and simple Banquo's reply ! " There if I grow, 
the harvest is your own." 

But now comes the imfnediate motive for Macbeth's evil desire 
to go forth into act. Duncan, in the fulness of his joys, nominates 
his eldest son, Malcolm, as his successor to the throne : " My plen- 
teous joys, wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves in drops of 
sorrow. — Sons, kinsmen, thanes, and you whose places are the 
nearest, know we will establish our estate upon our eldest, Mal- 
colm, whom we name hereafter the Prince of Cumberland ; which 
honour must not unaccompanied invest him only, but signs of 
nobleness, like stars, shall shine on all deservers. — From hence 
to Inverness, and bind us further to you." Macbeth rephes in 
another hypocritical and traitorous speech : " The rest is labour, 
which is not used for you [that is, the rest which is not spent in 
the King's service, is like severe labor]. I'll be myself the har- 
binger and make joyful the hearing of my wife loith your approach ; 
so, humbly take my leave. Duncan. My worthy Cawdor ! " 

Before Macbeth goes out, he soliloquizes, the King and Banquo 
confer apart — the subject of their conference being, as appears 
from Duncan's speech, Macbeth's valiant conduct. Macbeth 
says aside : "The Prince of Cumberland ! that is a step on which 



246 LADY MACBETH' S RELATIONS TO MACBETH. 

I must fall down, or else o'erleap, for in my way it lies. Stars, 
hide your fires ! Let not light see my black and deep desires : 
the eye wink at the hand ; yet let that be which the eye fears, 
when it is done, to see." 

How prophetic the last sentence is ! " Yet let that be, which 
the eye fears, when it is done, to see." 

In the 2d Scene of the 2d Act, he says, after the murder : " I'll 
go no more : I am afraid to think what I have done ; look on't 
again I dare not." 

This soliloquy is an all-sufficient evidence that Macbeth's regi- 
cidal intent was entirely independent of any suggestions from his 
wife, as it was entirely independent of any suggestions from the 
weird sisters. Lady Macbeth's ambition is wholly sympathetic. 
It is not with her an independent passion at all. When she 
knows her husband's all-absorbing desire, she sets about, in her 
wifely devotion, to help him to its realization, although she's fully 
aware that she must do fatal violence to her woman nature. 

In the face of this 4th Scene of the ist Act, and, it may be said, 
in the face of the whole play, Hazlitt pronounces Macbeth " full 
of the milk of human kindness " (an expression used by Lady 
Macbeth, but not therefore true ; for she overestimates her hus- 
band at the outset — she doesn't truly know him), "frank and 
generous. He is tempted to the commission of guilt by the insti- 
gations of his wife, and by prophetic warnings. Fate and meta- 
physical aid conspire against his virtue and his loyalty." This is 
an opinion substantially entertained by a large number of Shake- 
spearian critics. 

The temptation, on the contrary, was subjective. There's not 
a particle of evidence in the Play that the temptation originated 
from without, either with the witches or with Lady Macbeth. In 
their interview after his soliloquy, " If it were done when 'tis 
done," etc. (A. I. So. vii.), she says, in reply to his speech, "I 
dare do all that may become a man," " what beast was't then 
that made you break this enterprise to 7ne ? " That's sufficiently 
explicit, certainly. 



LADY MACBETH' S RELATIONS TO MACBETH. 247 

Ambition for sovereignty and masterdom is the mainspring 
motive of Macbeth, but as Lloyd, in his " Critical Essays," more 
correctly puts it than critics generally. Lady Macbeth "partici- 
pates in his ambition only by sympathy. No expression falls 
from her that indicates it as her independent passion, or hints 
that it was from her original suggestion that it was excited in her 
husband." Again he says, " Subjected to the doom, she has lost 
her own individuahty in that of her husband, and in the necessity 
to occupy the nearest place in his interest and heart. She allies 
herself with his master passion, and becomes its minister. Ambi- 
tion, therefore, is not in her absolute and self-dependent; it is 
the expression of another feeling which, with a different com- 
panion, might have taken any other turn ; and hence her asso- 
ciation of the direst acts with the offices and tenderness of 
maternity, is as truly consistent and natural as momentary com- 
punction at the resemblance of the sleeping Duncan to her 
father." 

In the 3d Scene of the 2d Act, Lady Macbeth enters in the 
confusion consequent upon the discovery and announcement, by 
Macduff, of the murder of the King, and inquires : " What's the 
business, that such a hideous trumpet calls to parley the sleepers 
of the house? speak, speak ! " And when Macbeth returns from 
the chamber of the King, and, with the blackest hypocrisy, de- 
scribes the horrid scene, including what Lady Macbeth herself 
had done, " the murderers steeped in the colors of their trade, 
their daggers unmannerly breached with gore," the strain is too 
much for her, and she faints, and is carried out. There's no 
reason for supposing that it's' a sham faint. Her woman nature 
asserts itself, and she can hold out no longer. It is plain, from 
the next scene, that she's quite broken. When Macbeth enters, 
she says, " How now, my lord ! Why do you keep alone, using 
those thoughts which should indeed have died with them they 
think on ? Things without all remedy should be without regard : 
what's done is done." 

She mistakes him here. He is not suffering from remorse for 



248 LADY MACBETH' S RELATIONS TO MACBETH. 

what has been done, but from fears of what is before him. He 
repHes to her last speech, " We have scotch'd the snake, not kill'd 
it. She'll close and be herself, whilst our poor malice remains in 
danger of her former tooth." The rest of this speech shows that 
Macbeth is ready to enter upon the course in which he will no 
longer need his wife. In reply to her speech, " you must leave 
this," he says : " Oh, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife ! " 
This speech taken by itself may easily be understood as express- 
ing remorse ; but the next sentence explains it : " Thou know'st 
that Banquo, and his Fleance, lives." To her question, "What's 
to be done?" he replies: "Be innocent of the knowledge, 
dearest chuck, till thou applaud the deed." He needs her no 
longer. 

In the banquet scene, after the guests have been dismissed, 
Macbeth asks, " What is the night ? " To which she rephes, " Al- 
most at odds with morning, which is which." Here is the point 
where she entirely breaks. She has made one additional effort to 
sustain her husband, and can do no more. 

Charlotte Cushman, in her impersonation of Lady Macbeth, 
rendered "almost at odds with morning, which is which," with 
great effect. Right upon Macbeth's question, " What is the 
night?" she dropped passively into a chair, and uttered the words 
with an intonation of entire hopelessness, which told the whole 
story. 

All of Lady Macbeth's part in the tragedy, is reflected by her 
speeches in the night- walking scene, the ist of the 5 th Act. And 
it is affecting to note the contrasts which some of these speeches 
present to her earlier speeches. In A. I. Sc. v. she says : " Come 
thick night, and pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell ! " In 
A. V. Sc. i. she says, evidently thinking herself in hell : " Hell is 
murky ! " In A. I. Sc. v. she says : " You shall put this night's 
great business into my dispatch ; which shall to all our nights and 
days to come, give solely sovereign sway and masterdom." In 
A. V. Sc. i. she says : " What need we care who knows it, when 
none can call our power to account?" In the murder scene 



LADY MACBETH' S RELATIONS TO MACBETH. 249 

(A. 11. Sc. ii.) she says : " If he do bleed, I'll gild the faces of 
the grooms withal, for it must seem their guilt. In A. V. Sc. i. 
she says : " Yet who would have thought the old man to have had 
so much blood in him ! " In A. II. Sc. ii. she says : " My hands 
are of your color : but I shame to wear a heart so white." In 
A. V. Sc. i. she says: "What, will these hands ne'er be clean?" 
In the banquet scene (A. III. Sc. iv.) she says : " Oh, these flaws 
and starts" — and "think of this, good peers, but as a thing of 
custom : 'tis no other ; only it spoils the pleasure of the time." 
In A. V. Sc. i. she says : " No more o' that, my lord, no more o' 
that : you mar all with this starting." In the murder scene she 
says : " Go get some water, and wash this filthy witness from your 
hand." In A. V. Sc. i. she says: "Wash your hands, put on 
your nightgown; look not so pale." In the murder scene she 
says : " I hear a knocking at the south entry : retire we to our 
chamber : a little water clears us of this deed : how easy is it 
then? " In A. V. Sc. i. she says : " Here's the smell of the blood 
still : all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. 
Oh, Oh, Oh ! " In the murder scene she says : " Your constancy 
hath left you unattended. — Hark ! more knocking. Get on your 
nightgown, lest occasion call us, and shew us to be watchers. Be 
not lost so poorly in your thoughts." In A. V. Sc. i. she says : 
" To bed, to bed ! there's knocking at the gate ; come, come, 
come, come, give me your hand." 

In A. III. S. ii. she says: "Things without all remedy should 
be without regard : what's done, is done." In A. V. Sc. i. she 
says : " What's done, cannot be undone." 

The artistic purpose of this night-walking scene appears to be, 
to reflect the real womanly nature of Lady Macbeth (to which she 
did such violence in the part she took upon herself to play that it 
suffered, for a time, a total eclipse), and her possibilities for great 
good or great evil (the latter in every man and woman being 
commensurate with the former). Her misfortune was that as a 
wife, she sunk her individuality in her husband ; and terrible was 
the penalty she paid for this. If that individuality had rendered 



250 LADY MACBETH' S RELATIONS TO MACBETH. 

the same fealty to a noble nature, how different, with its great 
capabihties of love, would have been the result ! As it was, she 
" knew how tender 'twas to love the babe that milked her." And 
she shows, in one of her speeches, that she had been a loving 
daughter : " Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had 
done't." 

The last we hear of the poor conscience-stricken queen is in the 
5th Scene of the 5th Act. A cry within of women is heard. On 
which the Countess of Charlemont remarks : " She was not all 
evil. Her own sex and her servants mourned for her." 

Macbeth asks, when the cry is heard, "What is that noise?" 
and Seyton replies, " It is the cry of women, my good lord," and 
goes out to learn the cause. When he re-enters, he says, " The 
queen, my lord, is dead." Whereupon Macbeth soliloquizes : 
"She should have died hereafter; " etc. (In uttering the words, 
" Out, out, brief candle," in this soliloquy, some actors strike their 
breasts, as if the reference were to Macbeth's own light of hfe, but 
they should certainly be understood as having reference to the 
candle of Lady Macbeth's life. Though commas are used in the 
First Folio, the words should be uttered with an interrogative into- 
nation, united with that of surprise : " Out? out? brief candle? " 
[out so soon ?] The latter meaning suits better, too, the reflec- 
tions which follow.) 

Dr. Furnivall says, in a note on a paper by the Countess of 
Charlemont, which was read before the New Shakspere Society of 
London, and which takes the view that Lady Macbeth's ambition 
was wholly sympathetic : " The notion that Lady Macbeth stirred, 
nay forced, Macbeth to his villanous murder, to gratify his ambi- 
tion only, and not her own too, is so in the teeth of Shakespeare's 
authority, Holinshed, ' but especially his wife lay sore upon him 
to attempt the thing, as she that was very ambitious, burning in 
unquenchable desire to bear the name of queen,' that I don't 
think the point worth arguing." 

On this it should be remarked (whether the theory that Lady 
Macbeth's ambition was sympathetic, be or be not correct), that 



LADY MACBETH' S RELATIONS TO MACBETH. 25 I 

the Student of any play of Shakespeare, must not go to the history 
or novel from which the framework of the play was derived, for 
the interpretation of the characters of the play. But commen- 
tators have frequently done this, when they should have asked 
themselves the question, what saith the play? not, what saith the 
original history or novel on which it is based? Shakespeare 
always brought an independent dramatic purpose to the adopted 
story or history, by which dramatic purpose the movement of the 
play is determined and not by the adopted story or history. The 
latter has nothing whatever to do with the interpretation of any of 
the characters. 



252 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 



THE date of the composition of Antony and Cleopatra is gen- 
erally assigned to the year 1607 or i6o8, when Shakespeare 
was 43 or 44 years of age, in the full maturity of his powers, and 
when " the profoundest concerns of the individual soul were press- 
ing upon the imagination of the poet." The Play ranks with his 
grandest productions, and perhaps surpasses them all. " The 
highest praise," says Coleridge, " or rather form of praise, of this 
Play, which I can offer in my own mind, is the doubt which the 
perusal always occasions in me, whether the Antony and Cleopatra 
is not, in all exhibitions of a giant power, in its strength and vigor 
of maturity, a formidable rival of Macbeth, Lear, Hamlet, and 
Othello. Feliciter audax is the motto for its style comparatively 
with that of Shakespeare's other works, even as it is the general 
motto of all his works compared with those of other poets. , . . 
As a wonderful specimen of the way in which Shakespeare lives 
up to the very end of this play, read the last part of the conclud- 
ing scene. And if you would feel the judgment as well as the 
genius of Shakespeare in your heart's core, compare this astonish- 
ing drama with Dryden's ' All for Love,' which is based on it." 

Antony and Cleopatra is, to all intents and purposes, a tragedy, 
the moral interest predominating over the historical or political. 
The latter is, indeed, entirely subservient to the former — consti- 
tuting a background against which individualities are exhibited. 
Even Coriolanus, though much stress has been laid by some critics 
upon its politico-historical character (see especially Hazlitt), is, 
strictly speaking, a tragedy. As Swinburne well puts it, " the whole 
force of the final impression is not that of a conflict between patri- 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 253 

cian and plebeian, but solely that of a match of passions played 
out for life and death between a mother and a son. The parti- 
sans of oligarchic or democratic systems may wrangle at their will 
over the supposed evidences of Shakespeare's prejudice against 
this creed, and prepossession in favor of that : a third bystander 
may rejoice in the proof established of his impartial indifference 
towards either : it is all nothing to the real point in hand. The 
subject of the whole play is not the exile's revolt, the rebel's repent- 
ance, or the traitor's reward, but above all it is the son's tragedy. 
The inscription on the phnth of this tragic statue is simply to 
Volumnia Victrix." 

Prof. Denton J. Snider treats the play as " essentially a drama 
of Political Parties. . . . Moreover, the warring principles of the 
two parties are aristocracy and democracy — the conflict which 
has always in History been most prolific of political strife. The 
main characters are graded according to their partisan bias and 
intensity, for the essence of the conflict is party versus country." 

But it is a mistake, I think, to impute a doctrinal character 
to any play of Shakespeare, whether that character be moral, polit- 
ical, religious, or philosophical. Everything is held more or less 
in solution, in the Plays — there's comparatively Httle of precipi- 
tation, and hardly anything at all of crystallization into opinions 
or doctrines. (It's a marked characteristic of literary educational 
processes in these days, that nothing is allowed to be held in 
solution in a literary work, if it can be precipitated and crystal- 
lized into ideas and opinions ; in other words, if it can be brought 
into the domain of the insulated intellect. The age would be 
healthier if there were less of this.) 

Shakespeare is always, and pre-eminently, and exclusively, the 
dramatist; but as a dramatist, he is distinguished from all the 
contemporary dramatists, in his working more strictly than any 
of them, under the condition of moral proportion (and by moral 
proportion I mean that which is in harmony with the permanent 
constitution, with the eternal fitness, of things), and this he did, 
because, as must be inferred, he felt more than did any other of 



254 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

the contemporary dramatists, the constitution of things, and knew 
that that constitution of things could not be violated with impu- 
nity. To unite moral proportion with a more or less unrestrained 
play of the passions, is the great artistic achievement of Shake- 
speare, in his tragic masterpieces. And when a critic looks into 
his Plays with an eye for the doctrinal, he can easily find it there, 
because the best results of human philosophy in its several depart- 
ments have been induced and deduced from careful observations 
of the permanent constitution of things, and therefore correspond 
more or less with the philosophy concretely embodied in the 
Plays. The concrete philosophy and the abstract philosophy are 
based on, or derived from, the same permanent constitution of 
things. 

Accordingly, it's easy for any one with philosophical tendencies 
to mistake the artist, or creator, for the explicit teacher. The 
great artist works within boundless nature, and in conformity with 
nature ; and in his works may be found the same principles which 
are found in nature. But we must not suppose that he first 
educed these principles before he embodied them — that he 
started with abstractions, and translated them into the concrete. 
No ; the true artist uses the concrete as a native language, so 
to speak ; and the abstract principles which may be found in his 
work, are involved in the creative movement, and did not, in an 
abstract form, predetermine that movement. 

There's no partisanship in Shakespeare's Plays, poUtical, relig- 
ious, or any other, though he lived at a time when it was almost 
impossible to be neutral in regard to many things, and especially 
in regard to religion. The great body of the people was com- 
posed of two classes, — one strongly Roman Catholic and one 
strongly Protestant. There must have been very few half and half 
religious people in those days. Shakespeare's impartiality, as exhib- 
ited in his Plays, in regard to religion and government, could not 
fairly be ascribed to a religious and political indifference — to his 
having no strong feeling one way or the other ; it should rather be 
ascribed to his affinities as an artist, a great creator, for the essen- 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 



255 



tial or the real, rather than for the phenomenal or the actual — 
for the permanent rather than for the conventional — for the spirit 
rather than for the letter, so to speak. He was too complete a 
man to take one-sided views of things ; and partisanship of any- 
kind implies generally a more or less one-sidedness of view ; and 
the stronger, the more violent the partisanship, the more exclusive 
the one-sidedness of view. The impartiality of Shakespeare, in a 
religious point of view, is especially shown in his King John, as 
compared with the earUer play, "The Troublesome Reign of 
King John," whose general casting, but none of its moulding, 
religious spirit Shakespeare adopted in his play. 

The question as to whether Shakespeare was Roman Catholic 
or Protestant has been more than sufficiently discussed, but with 
no conclusive results. And so the question as to whether he was 
aristocratic in his proclivities or democratic, cannot be answered 
with any more certainty than that in regard to his religious creed. 
If it could be answered at all, Coriolanus is the play to which we 
should go for the answer. But no conclusive answer can be got 
from this play as to his political creed. Its political character is 
a background for the exhibition of personal character. It's a 
drama of individuality, as are all of Shakespeare's dramas, more 
or less, whatever be their framework. It was never his aim, his 
direct aim, to embody abstract principles — although the profound- 
est principles are operative in his creations. His dramatic motive 
is individuality, personality, acting and exhibiting itself under out- 
ward conditions and collisions, those conditions or collisions being 
political, social, domestic, or what not. Shakespeare is, in one 
sense, and that the very highest, a moralist, and a social and 
political philosopher ; that is, he is concretely these ; he embodies 
the principles of moraUty and of social and political philosophy, 
and thus vitalizes and emphasizes them to a degree beyond what 
any abstract enunciation could do.* And it is all-important that 



* Perhaps to say that he embodies the principles of morality, and of social 
and political philosophy, may convey a wrong idea. It is better to say that 



256 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, 

the student of his works should come into as full a sympathy as 
possible with the concrete embodiment, which is the product of 
this creative energy (even if he have no consciousness of a7iy 
immanent principle). If his mind be set in an abstract direction, 
and he aim to translate the word made flesh into the abstract 
word, he shuts himself off more or less from a vitalizing sympathy 
with the concrete. 

Professor Delius, at the conclusion of his 2d paper " On Shake- 
speare's Use of Narration in his Dramas " (Transactions of the 
New Shakspere Society, 1875-6, Part I. p. 345), remarks: '-'In 
the two last Acts [of Antony and Cleopatra], Shakespeare evi- 
dently allows the psychological and personal interest attaching to 
the two principal actors in his drama to outweigh the historical 
interest. The further action up to the tragic end is scenically 
enacted before our eyes, within a narrower compass, so that the 
poet had no need to again make use of the epic element." 

It seems to be assumed by Professor DeHus, in the first of these 
sentences, that the historical interest is the dominant one in the 
first three Acts of the drama; and he asserts that "in the two last 
Acts, Shakespeare allows the psychological and personal interest 
attaching to the two principal actors to outweigh the historical 
interest.''' Which would seem to mean that Shakespeare, after 
working through three Acts with a historical interest, was finally 
carried out of his course by a psychological and personal interest. 
But the fact is, that this latter interest is the dominant one from 
the beginning to the end of the Play, and outweighs the historical 
interest which is subsidiary to it. Shakespeare always strikes dis- 
tinctly and unmistakably the keynotes of his Plays in the opening 
scenes. 

The key note of Antony and Cleopatra is struck in the initial 
sentence. Philo says to Demetrius : 



these principles were more or less unconsciously involved in the current of 
his creative energy — which creative energy must have been in the fullest 
harmony with the constitution of things. 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 257 

"Nay, but this dotage of our generaPs 
O'erflows the measure : those his goodly eyes, 
That o'er the files and musters of the war 
Have glow'd like plated Mars, now bend, now turn, 
The office and devotion of their view 
Upon a tawny front : his captain's heart, 
Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst 
The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper. 
And is become the bellows and the fan 
To cool a gipsy's lust." 

Here, announced by a flourish, enter Antony, Cleopatra, her 
Ladies, the Train, with Eunuchs fanning her. Philo continues his 
speech aside to Demetrius : 

" Look, where they come : 
Take but good note, and you shall see in him 
The triple pillar of the world transform'd 
Into a strumpet's fool : behold and see." 

In the 4th Scene of the ist Act, the self-poised Octavius re- 
counts to Lepidus, Antony's life in Alexandria : 

" From Alexandria 
This is the news : he fishes, drinks, and wastes 
The lamps of night in revel ; is not more manlike 
Than Cleopatra ; nor the queen of Ptolemy 
More womanly than he ; hardly gave audience, or 
Vouchsafed to think he had partners : you shall find there 
A man who is the abstract of all faults 
That all men follow." 

Lepidus, who, with a sense of his weakness and insecurity in the 
triumvirate, is ever disposed to smooth down all roughnesses, at- 
tempts a defence of his erring colleague : 

" I must not think there are 
Evils enow to darken all his goodness : 
His faults in him seem as the spots of heaven. 
More fiery by night's blackness ; hereditary, 
Rather than purchased ; what he cannot change, 
Than what he chooses." 



258 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

Octavius replies : 

" You are too indulgent. Let us grant, it is not 
Amiss to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy ; 
To give a kingdom for a mirth ; to sit 
And keep the turn of tippling with a slave ; 
To reel the streets at noon, and stand the buffet 
With knaves that smell of sweat : say this becomes him, — 
As his composure must be rare indeed 
Whom these things cannot blemish, — yet must Antony 
No way excuse his soils, when we do bear 
So great weight in his likeness. If he fill'd 
His vacancy with his voluptuousness, 
Full surfeits, and the dryness of his bones, 
Call on him forH: but to confound such time. 
That drums him from his sport, and speaks as loud 
As his own state and ours, — 'tis to be chid 
As we rate boys, who, being mature in knowledge, 
Pawn their experience to their present pleasure, 
And so rebel to judgement." 

Here a messenger enters and informs Octavius of Pompey's 
strength at sea, that the malcontents are repairing to the ports, 
that Menecrates and Menas, famous pirates, control the sea, and 
make many hot inroads in Italy. These bad news leads Octavius 
to contrast Antony's present life of ruinous voluptuousness with the 
heroic promise of his earlier Hfe, when no kinds of hardship were 
too much for him to endure : 

" Antony, 

Leave thy lascivious wassails. When thou once 

Wast beaten from Modena, where thou slew'st 

Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel 

Did famine follow ; whom thou fought'st against, 

Though daintily brought up, with patience more 

Than savages could suffer : thou didst drink 

The stale of horses, and the gilded puddle 

Which beasts would cough at : thy palate then did deign 

The roughest berry on the rudest hedge ; 

Yea, like the stag, when snow the pasture sheets, 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 259 

The barks of trees thou browsed'st ; on the Alps 
It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh, 
Which some did die to look on : and all this — 
It wounds thine honour that I speak it now — 
Was borne so like a soldier, that thy cheek 
So much as lank'd not.* 

Lep. Tis pity of him. 

CcBS. Let his shames quickly 
Drive him to Rome : 'tis time we twain 
Did show ourselves i' the field ; and to that end 
Assemble we immediate council : Pompey 
Thrives in our idleness." 



* What Octavius says of Antony's former life, affords a good illustration of 
how closely Shakespeare follows his original, namely, North's Plutarch. 

" Cicero on the other side, being at that time the chiefest man of authority 
and estimation in the city, he stirred up all men against Antonius : so that in 
the end he made the senate pronounce him an enemy to his country, and 
appointed young Caesar sergeants, to carry axes before him, and such other 
signs as were incident to the dignity of a Consul or Praetor : and moreover, 
sent Hircius and Pansa, then Consuls, to drive Antonius out of Italy. These 
two Consuls, together with Caesar, who also had an army, went against Anto- 
nius that besieged the city of Modena, and there overthrew him in battle : but 
both the Consuls were slain there. 

" Antonius, flying from this overthrow, fell into great misery all at once : but 
the chiefest want of all other, and that pinched him most, was famine, How- 
beit he was of such a strong nature, that by patience ^ he would overcome any 
adversity : and the heavier fortune lay upon him, the more constant showed 
he himself. Every man that feeleth want or adversity, knoweth by virtue and 
discretion what he should do: but when indeed they are overlaid with ex- 
tremity, and be sore oppressed, few have the hearts to follow that which they 
praise and commend, and much less to avoid that they reprove and mishke : 
but rather to the contrary, they yield to their accustomed easy life, and 
through faint heart, and lack of courage, do change their first mind and pur- 
pose. And therefore it was a wonderful example to the soldiers, to see An- 
tonius, that was brought up in all fineness and superfluity, so easily to drink 
puddle water, and to eat wild fruits and roots : and moreover it is reported, 
that even as they passed the Alps, they did eat the barks of trees, and such 
beasts as never man tasted of their flesh before." 

1 endurance. 



26o ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

In these speeches, artistically important in respect to Antony 
(for the poet's purpose is to emphasize his great possibilities), the 
character of Octavius is also reflected — the man before whom 
Sextus Pompeius and Antony and Lepidus must give way, and who 
is to effect a realization of the tendency of the time to imperialism. 
Octavius is the representative of the spirit of Caesar which Brutus 
and Cassius, in the Play of Julius Caesar, did not take sufficient 
account of when they planned and effected his assassination. 
They killed his body, but had no power over his spirit. This they 
both discovered on the plains of Philippi, Cassius's last words 
being, " Caesar, thou art revenged, even with the sword that killed 
thee." And Brutus, when he learns of Cassius's death, exclaims, 
" O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet ! thy spirit walks abroad, 
and turns our swords in our own proper entrails." 

This then is the dramatic situation : a man of extraordinary 
possibilities, altogether of colossal but unsymmetrical proportions, 
brought under the sway of a fascinating woman — fascinating in a 
sensuous direction — with all possible adventitious aids to her in- 
strinsic fascination \ but to induce a vigorous resistance to this sway 
under which he is brought, and to save him from becoming a help- 
less victim of her magic, the greatest possible demands are made 
upon his asserting his nobler self — demands which, if met, would 
enable him " to walk the earth with dominion," though wanting in 
the civic genius of his colleague in the triumvirate, Octavius. He 
is an unparalleled illustration of what Hamlet is made "to give 
expression to (A. I. Sc. iv. 23-38) : 

" So, oft it chances in particular men, 
That for some vicious mole of nature in them, 
As in their birth, — wherein they are not guilty. 
Since nature cannot choose his origin, — 
By the overgrowth of some complexion, 
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason, 
Or by some habit that too much o'er-leavens 
The form of plausive manners ; that these men, — 
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect, 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 261 

Being nature's livery, or fortune's star, — 
Their virtues else — be they as pure as grace, 
As infinite as man may undergo — 
Shall in the general censure take corruption 
From that particular fault ; the dram of eale 
Doth all the noble substance of a doubt 
To his own scandal." 

This passage expresses the very theme of Antony and Cleo- 
patra as a tragedy ; and when Shakespeare wrote it, he had 
already, there can be little or no doubt, produced the play of 
Julius Caesar, and had seen in the character of Antony, notwith- 
standing all its great elements, the fatal consequences of a 
"vicious mole of nature." Antony may have been in his mind 
when he wrote this passage. Thomas De Quincey, in his volume 
on "The Caesars," credits Shakespeare with an insight into the 
grand possibilities of Antony's nature, which the Romans them- 
selves could not have had : " Shakespeare," he says, " had a just 
conception of the original grandeur which lay beneath that wild 
tempestuous nature presented by Antony to the eye of the undis- 
criminating world. It is to the honor of Shakespeare that he 
should have been able to discern the true coloring of this most 
original character under the smoke and tarnish of antiquity. It is 
no less to the honor of the great triumvir, that a strength of color- 
ing should survive in his character, capable of baffling the wrongs 
and ravages of time. Neither is it to be thought strange that a 
character should have been misunderstood and falsely appreciated 
for nearly two thousand years. It happens not uncommonly, es- 
pecially amongst an unimaginative people, like the Romans, that 
the characters of men are ciphers and enigmas to their own age, 
and are first read and interpreted by a far distant posterity. . . . 
Men like Mark Antony, with minds of chaotic composition — 
light conflicting with darkness, proportions of colossal grandeur 
disfigured by unsymmetrical arrangement, the angelic in close 
neighborhood with the brutal — are first read in their true meaning 
by an age learned in the philosophy of the human heart. Of this 



262 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

philosophy the Romans had, by the necessities of education and 
domestic discipline, not less than by original constitution of mind, 
the very narrowest visual range. . . . Not man in his own 
peculiar nature, but man in his relations to other men, was the 
station from which the Roman speculators took up their philoso- 
phy of human nature. Tried by such standard, Mark Antony 
would be found wanting. As a citizen, he was irretrievably Hcen- 
tious, and therefore there needed not the bitter personal feud, 
which circumstances had generated between them, to account for 
the acharne}ne?it with, which Cicero pursued him. Had Antony 
been his friend even, or his near kinsman, Cicero must still have 
been his public enemy. And not merely for his vices ; for even 
the grander features of his character, his towering ambition, his 
magnanimity, and the fascinations of his popular qualities, — were 
all, in the circumstances of those times, and in his disposition, of 
a tendency dangerously uncivic. 

" So remarkable was the opposition, at all points, between the 
second Caesar and his rival, that whereas, Antony even in his 
virtues seemed dangerous to the state, Octavius gave a civic color- 
ing to his most indifferent actions, and, with a Machiavelian policy, 
observed a scrupulous regard to the forms of the Republic, after 
every fragment of the republican institutions, the privileges of the 
republican magistrates, and the functions of the great popular 
officers, had been absorbed into his own autocracy. Even in the 
most prosperous days of the Roman state, when the democratic 
forces balanced, and were balanced by, those of the aristocracy, it 
was far from being a general or common praise, that a man was 
of a civic turn of mind, antJtio civili. Yet this praise did Augustus 
affect, and in reality attain, at a time when the very object of all 
civic feeling was absolutely extinct ; so much are men governed 
by words." 

The occasion of Antony's meeting with Cleopatra — an impor- 
tant artistic feature of the Play, as it strikes the keynote to the 
sensuous fascination of which Antony is to be the victim — Shake- 
speare found fully described in Plutarch ; but while following Plu- 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 263 

tarch very closely, he gives additional touches to his prose original 
which heighten its coloring, and impart an imaginative glow to the 
whole picture. 

The description, in the Play, is given by Enobarbus to Agrippa, 
in the 2d Scene of the 2d Act, beginning at the 196th line. 

North's " Plutarch " reads *:"... she disdained to set forward 
otherwise, but to take her barge in the river of Cydnus ; the poop 
whereof was of gold, the sails of purple, and the oars of silver, 
which kept stroke in the rowing after the sound of the music of 
flutes, howboys, cithernes, viols, and such other instruments as 
they played upon in the barge." 
Shakespeare : 

" The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, 
Burn'd on the water ; the poop was beaten gold ; 
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that 
The winds were love-sick with them ; the oars were silver, 
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke and made 
The water which they beat to follow faster. 
As amorous of their strokes." 
North : 

"And now for the person of her self, she was laid under a 
paviHon of cloth of gold of tissue, apparelled and attired like the 
goddess Venus, commonly drawn in picture : and hard by her, 
on either hand of her, pretty fair boys apparelled as painters do 
set forth god Cupid, with little fans in their hands, with the which 
they fanned wind upon her." 
Shakespeare : 

" For her own person, 
It beggar'd all description : she did lie 
In her pavilion — cloth-ot-gold of tissue — 
O'erpicturing that Venus where we see 
The fancy outwork nature : on each side her 
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids, 
With diverse coloured fans, whose wind did seem 
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool, 
And what they undid did. 
Agr. O, rare for Antony ! " 



264 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

North : 

" Her ladies and gentlewomen also, the fairest of them, were 
apparelled like the nymphs Nereids (which are the mermaids of 
the waters) and like the Graces ; some steering the helm, others 
tending the tackle and ropes of the barge, out of the which there 
came a wonderful passing* sweet savour of perfumes, that perfum'd 
the wharfs side, pestered j with innumerable multitudes of people." 
Shakespeare : 

" Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides, 
So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes, 
And made their bends adornings : at the helm 
A seeming mermaid steers ; the silken tackle 
Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands, 
That yarely frame the office. From the barge 
A strange invisible perfume hits the sense 
Of the adjacent wharfs." 
North : 

" Some of them followed the barge all along the river-side : 
others also ran out of the city to see her coming in. So that in 
the end, there ran such multitudes of people one after another to 
see her, that Antonius was left post % alone in the market-place, 
in his imperial seat, to give audience." 

Shakespeare : 

" The city cast 
Her people out upon her ; and Antony, 
Enthroned in the market-place, did sit alone, 
Whistling to the air ; which, but for vacancy, 
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too. 
And made a gap in nature. 
Agr. Rare Egyptian ! " 
North : 

"And there went a rumour in the people's mouths, that the 
goddess Venus was come to play with the god Bacchus, for the 
general good of all Asia. When Cleopatra landed, Antonius sent 
to invdte her to supper to him. But she sent him word again, he 



* surpassingly. f crowded. \ posted. 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 265 

should do better rather to come and sup with her. Antonius, 
therefore, to shew himself courteous unto her at her arrival, was 
contented to obey her, and went to supper to her : where he found 
such passing sumptuous fare, that no tongue can express it." 
Shakespeare : 

" Upon her landing, Antony sent to her, 
Invited her to supper : she replied, 
It should be better he became her guest ; 
Which she entreated : our courteous Antony, 
Whom ne'er the word of ' No ' woman heard speak, 
Being barber'd ten times o'er, goes to the feast, 
And, for his ordinary, pays his heart 
For what his eyes eat only." 

There should be noted, in the first place, the slight circumstan- 
tial omissions Shakespeare makes, which were not essential to 
his purpose. But what is chiefly remarkable, are the additions 
he makes to his prose original : his imagination projects itself into 
inanimate things and impassions them. For example, the winds 
are represented as love- sick with the perfumes from the sails ; the 
water beat by the silver oars, follows faster, as if amorous of their 
strokes; the silken tackle swell with the touches of the floiver-soft 
hands that tend them ; the very air of the city, whose inhabitants 
had all gone out to gaze on Cleopatra, is represented as eager to 
go and gaze upon her too, but that it feared to make a gap in 
nature ! 

In such a highly-colored and richly-sensuous passage, the great 
artist creates the atmosphere in which the passion-fated pair are 
exhibited. 

Now what moral problem was involved in the dramatic treat- 
ment of such a theme ? It could be said, a priori, that the prob- 
lem consisted in shutting off sympathy with moral obliquity, and 
inviting sympathy with moral freedom so far as the latter is 
asserted, on the part of the principal actors. And just this, it will 
be seen, Shakespeare has done. We are nowhere brought into a 
sympathetic relationship with the moral obliquity of either Antony 



266 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

or Cleopatra. We are protected by the moral spirit with which 
the dramatist works, from any perversion of the moral judgment. 
And this protection is positive rather than negative ; for the moral 
judgment is stimulated to its best activity, throughout the play. 

An interesting feature of the play, bearing on its moral spirit, is 
that part of its narrated element v/hich pertains to the hero and 
heroine — what is told of Antony and of Cleopatra, instead of be- 
ing brought dramatically forward. Professor Delius, in his valu- 
able papers " On Shakespeare's Use of Narration in his Dramas," 
attributes too much, perhaps, of the narrated element, to the defi- 
ciencies of the stage in Shakespeare's time, and not enough to 
the perspective the artist aimed after, by his use of narration, and 
to the moral proportion of a play. What is thrown into the back- 
ground by narration often serves moral proportion by its being 
thus kept apart from our sympathies. This is especially the case 
with the tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra. 

In the opening scene, when Cleopatra urges Antony to hear the 
messengers who have brought news from Rome, he replies : 

" Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch 
Of the ranged empire fall ! Here is my space. 
Kingdoms are clay : our dungy earth alike 
Feeds beast as man : the nobleness of life 
Is to do thus ; when such a mutual pair \Embracing. 

And such a twain can do't, in which I bind, 
On pain of punishment, the world to weet 
We stand up peerless."" — A. I. Sc. i. 33-39. 

When Cleopatra again urges him to hear the messengers, he 

replies : 

" Fie, wrangling queen ! 
Whom everything becomes, to chide, to laugh, 
To weep ; whose every passion fully strives 
To make itself, in thee, fair and admired ! 
No messenger, but thine." — A. I. Sc. i. 48-52. 

In the 2d Scene, after having learned from the messenger, of 
the death of Fulvia, Antony says in his temporary contrition, " I 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 267 

must from this enchanting queen break off" (A. I. Sc. ii. 132). 
Further on he says, " Would I had never seen her ! " to which 
Enobarbus repHes, " O, sir, you had then left unseen a wonder- 
ful piece of work ; which not to have been blest withal would have 
discredited your travel " (A. I. Sc. ii. 155-158). In Act II. Sc. ii. 
234-245, he says : 

" I saw her once 

Hop forty paces through the public street ; 

And having lost her breath, she spoke, and panted, 

That she did make defect perfection, 

And, breathless, power breathe forth. . . . 

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale 

Her infinite variety: other women cloy 

The appetites they feed : but she makes hungry 

Where most she satisfies : for vilest things 

Become themselves in her ; that the holy priests 

Bless her when she is riggish." 

Scarus, speaking of the disastrous sea-fight, says (A. III. Sc. x. 
18-21) : 

" She once being loof'd, 
The noble ruin of her magic, Antony, 
Claps on his sea-wing, and, like a doting mallard, 
Leaving the fight in height, flies after her." 

After his shameful flight from the engagement at sea, Antony 
says to Cleopatra (A. III. Sc. xi. 51-71) : 

" Ant. O, v/hither hast thou led me, Egypt? See, 
How I convey my shame out of thine eyes 
By looking back what I have left behind 
'Stroy'd in dishonour. 

Cleo. O my lord, my lord. 

Forgive my fearful sails ! I little thought 
You would have followed. 

Ant. Egypt, thou knew'st too well 

My heart was to thy rudder tied by the strings, 
And thou shouldst tow me after : o'er my spirit 



268 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

Thy full supremacy thou knew'st, and that 
Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods 
Command me. 

Cleo. O, my pardon ! 

Ant. Now I must 

To the young man send humble treaties, dodge 
And palter in the shifts of lowness ; who 
With half the bulk o' the world play'd as I pleased, 
Making and marring fortunes. You did know 
How much you were my conqueror ; and that 
My sword, made weak by my affection, would 
Obey it on all cause. 

Cleo. Pardon, pardon ! 

Ant. Fall not a tear, I say ; one of them rates 
All that is won and lost : give me a kiss ; 
Even this repays me." 

In the 4th Act, 14th Scene, when all is lost, and he believes 
that Cleopatra has "pack'd cards with Csesar, and false-play'd 
his glory unto an enemy's triumph," the eunuch Mardian enters 
and informs him (though falsely) that Cleopatra is dead. He at 
once resolves to follow her to the shades : 

'• I will overtake thee, Cleopatra, and 
Weep for my pardon. So it must be, for now 
All length is torture : since the torch is out, 
Lie down, and stray no farther : now all labour 
Mars what it does ; yea, very force entangles 
Itself with strength : seal then, and all is done. 
Eros ! — I come, my queen : — Eros ! — Stay for me : 
Where souls do couch on flowers, we'll hand in hand, 
And with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze : 
Dido and her ^Eneas shall want troops. 
And all the haunt be ours." — A. IV. Sc. xiv. 44-54- 

The fascination which Cleopatra exercised upon Antony, could 
hardly be more strongly expressed than it is here — a fascination 
which, he imagines, will, even in the world of spirits, draw all 
ghosts after them. 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 269 

After he has stabbed himself, and has been borne to the monu- 
ment wherein Cleopatra has shut herself with her attendants, he 
says to her : 

** I am dying, Egypt, dying; only 
I here importune death awhile, until 
Of many thousand kisses the poor last 
I lay upon thy lips." — A. IV. So. xv. 18-21. 

And then the attachment and devotion unto death of her at- 
tendants, Charmian and Iras, reflect the mysterious charm which 
she wrought upon all that approached her. When she is attired 
for death in her royal robes, and crowned, she kisses her two 
women, and Iras thereupon falls and dies, she having, as must be 
supposed, secretly apphed an asp to her arm. After Cleopatra 
dies from the bite of the asp, Charmian says : 

" So, fare thee well. 
Now boast thee, death, in thy possession lies 
A lass unparallePd. Downy windows, close ; 
And golden Phoebus never be beheld 
Of eyes again so royal ! Your crown's awry ; 
I'll mend it, and then play." — A. V. Sc. ii. 227-232. 

There's a deep pathos in Cleopatra's crown being awry, as she 
lies dead, in her royal robes, upon the couch ; and in Charmian's 
last sentence, " I'll mend it," (that is, adjust it), "and then play." 
And when the guard rushes in, she apphes to her arm an asp ; 
and, to the question of one of the guard, who sees that Cleopatra 
is dead, "Charmian, is this well done?" she replies, " It is well 
done, and fitting for a princess descended of so many royal kings. 
Ah, soldier ! " and dies. 

And when Octavius comes in, the first guard says to him : 

" O Cassar, 
This Charmian lived but now ; she stood and spake : 
I found her trimming up the diadem 
On her dead mistress : tremblingly she stood 
And on the sudden dropped." — A. V. Sc. ii. 343-347. 



270 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

The astute Caesar says, as he gazes upon the dead queen : 

" She looks like sleep, 
As she would catch another Antony 
In her strong toil of grace." — A. V. Sc. ii. 349-351. 

These passages sufficiently indicate the fascination which the 
Egyptian queen exerted upon those about her. And before An- 
tony came under her spell, the "broad-fronted Caesar" and 
"great Pompey " were wrapped in the coils of this "serpent of 
old Nile." Cleopatra says (A. I. Sc. v. 29-34), — and she doesn't 
increase our admiration of her by saying it of herself : 

" Broad-fronted Caesar, 
When thou wast here above the ground, I was 
A morsel for a monarch : and great Pompey 
Would stand and make his eyes grow in my brow ; 
There would he anchor his aspect and die 
With looking on his Hfe." 

Now the point to be especially noted is, that Cleopatra's fasci- 
nation is, in the passages quoted, described and spoken of, rather 
than brought dramatically to our feelings through what she herself 
says and does. These descriptions of her charms do not bring us 
into any sympathetic relationship with her personality. We simply 
know of her charms. The dramatist does but little more than 
the historian. Plutarch tells us of her fascination, and so does 
Dion Cassius. Both these writers emphasize it even more than 
Shakespeare does. But they narrate it as historians. They ad- 
dress the fact to our minds. But the drama, if it be within its 
purpose, should bring it, as far as possible, to our aesthetic appre- 
ciation, rather than simply acquaint us with the fact. But it does 
not do so. In some, indeed in all the scenes in which Cleopatra 
appears, she is not a very fascinating creature. Her treatment of 
the messenger who brings her the news of Antony's marriage to 
Octavia does not present her in a very attractive light ; rather, in 
a very repulsive one {k. II. Sc. v.). In her rage she is simply 
irrational. She beats the innocent messenger, hales him up and 



{ 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ^^, 

down and even prepares to kill him. She is almost divorced 
from the moral constitution of things. Her will is the wind's 
will Her fascmation, as represented by Shakespeare, is almost 
wholly a sexual one, exerted upon those who are in her bodily 
presence. But Plutarch attributes to her a moral fascination I 
use the word "moral" as opposed to "physical") which is not 
dramatically, at least, presented in the play: "Now he beauty 
(as . ,s reported) was not so passing as [to be] unmatchab e of 
other women, nor yet such as upon present view did enamou 
men with her: buy. s^e.t ^as her company an, con.ersaZ, 
that a nan could not fossiUy but be taken. And besides her 
beauty, the good grace she had to talk and discourse, her courteous 
":".'"/;' '^'"P"-^'' '->■ ^ords and deeds, ^as a spur bat 
prtcked to the ,uick. Furtkennore, besides all these, her X 
and ^ords u,ere marvellous pleasant : for her tongue n,as an 
instrument of music to divers sports and pastimes, the M she 
easily turned tnto any language that pleased her " 

Skottowe, in his " Life of Shakespeare ; Enquiries into the Origi- 

II. p. MO) Shakespeare has not been successful in conveym. 
an Idea of the elegance of Cleopatra's mind. Neither her Tn- 
ners, thoughts, nor language impress us with a conviction of her 
possessing those accomplishments which he ascribes to her Mark 
the model which Shakespeare had before him." Skottowe then 
gives the passage quoted above from Plutarch. To slj t a 
Shakespeare has not been successful in conveying," etc Is no 
the way to put it. He could have been " successful," if h ad 
seen fit to be. It should rather be said that his art purpose d d 
not demand that; it rather demanded that the "elegance oj 
Cleopatra's mmd " (supposing that an elegance of mind Tould be 

ufck " The' ^'"*r'^;^«P----. "- spur that pricked' to the 
at"w of i^ Vr' '""'/f '^'^"'^ '^' ^"'^' ^°^ked did not 

in tie o av M " r " °' *' "°^' ™P°"^"' "^'"=- '« be noted 
m the play. Mrs. Jameson says (and Verplanck endorses her 



2/2 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

words by saying that " there are few readers who do not feel with 
her"), that "Shakespeare's Cleopatra produces exactly the same 
effect on us that is recorded of the real Cleopatra. She dazzles 
our faculties, perplexes our judgments, bewilders and bewitches 
our fancy ; from the beginning to the end of the drama, we are 
conscious of a kind of fascination against which our moral sense 
rebels, but from which there is no escape." The poet Campbell 
more truly says, and with more justice to Shakespeare's dramatic 
art, that, "playfully interesting to our fancy as he makes this 
enchantress, he keeps us far from a vicious sympathy. The asp 
at her bosom, that lulls its nurse asleep, has no poison for our 
morality. A single glance at the devoted and dignified Octavia 
recalls our homage to virtue ; but with dehcate skill he withholds 
the purer woman from prominent contact with the wanton queen, 
and does not, hke Dryden, bring the two to a scolding match." 

Judging from the low estimate of woman, exhibited in the works 
of Dryden, he could not have had any appreciation of Shakespeare's 
Octavia. In the Preface to his " All for Love ; or. The World 
well lost," he says : "They [the French poets] would not have 
suffered Cleopatra and Octavia to have met ; or, if they had met, 
there must have only passed betwixt them some cold civilities, but 
no eagerness of repa7'tee, for fear of offending against the greatness 
of their characters and the modesty of their sex. This objection 
I foresaw, and at the same time contemned ; for I judged it both 
natural and probable, that Octavia, proud of her new-gained con- 
quest, would search out Cleopatra to triumph over her ; [!] and that 
Cleopatra, thus attacked, was not of a spirit to shun the encounter : 
and it is not unlikely that two exasperated rivals should use such 
satire as I have put into their mouths ; for, after all, though the one 
was a Roman, and the other a queen, they were both women I " 

Comment on such bosh is quite unnecessary. 

When we read The Winter's Tale, we understand perfecdy why 
Hermione has such a hold upon all about her. She sheds a fra- 
grance through the whole Play. And the same may be said of 
Imogen in Cymbeline, of Isabella in Measure for Measure, and 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 2/3 

of Others of Shakespeare's women. We understand the power 
which these women are represented as exerting, because the poet 
has brought it, through his dramatic art, to our aesthetic apprecia- 
tion. But he has rather aimed to shut off Cleopatra's power from 
any such appreciation. The moral spirit with which he always 
worked, determined him in this. Perhaps no' one of his Plays 
exhibits this moral spirit more distinctly than Antony and Cleo- 
patra. There is one Shakespearian critic, however, who appears 
to have come under the fascination of the Cleopatra of the Play 
more completely than did Marc Antony under that of the living 
Cleopatra, namely, Algernon Charles Swinburne. In his "A 
Study of Shakespeare," pp. 188-19 1, he says : 

" It would seem a sign or birthmark of only the greatest among 
poets that they should be sure to rise instantly for awhile above 
the very highest of their native height at the touch of a thought 
of Cleopatra. So was it, as we all know, with William Shake- 
speare : so is it, as we all see, with Victor Hugo. As we feel in 
the marvellous and matchless verses of Zim-Zizimi all the splen- 
dour and fragrance and miracle of her mere bodily presence, so 
from her first imperial dawn on the Stage of Shakespeare to the 
setting of that eastern star behind a pall of undissolving cloud we 
feel the charm and the terror and the mystery of her absolute and 
royal soul. . . . 

" Never has he given such proof of his incomparable instinct for 
abstinence from the wrong thing as well as achievement of the 
right.* He has utterly rejected and disdained all occasion of 
setting her off by means of any lesser foil than all the glory of the 
world with all its empires. And we need not Antony's example 
to show us that these are less than straws in the balance. 

*' ' Entre elle et Tunivers qui s'offraient a la fois 
II hesita, lachant le monde dans son choix.' 



♦This is quite true, but not in the sense in which Mr. Swinburne would 
have it taken. 



274 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 



" Even as that Roman grasp relaxed and let fall the world, so has 
Shakespeare's self let go for awhile his greater world of imagina- 
tion, with all its all but infinite variety of life and thought and 
action, for love of that more infinite variety which custom could 
not stale. Himself a second and a yet more fortunate Antony, he 
has once more laid a world, and a world more wonderful than 
ever, at her feet. He has put aside for her sake all other forms 
and figures of womanhood ; he, father or creator of Rosahnd, of 
Cordelia, of Desdemona, and of Imogen, he too, Hke the sun- 
god and sender of all song, has anchored his eyes on her whom 
' Phoebus' amorous pinches ' could not leave ' black ' nor 'wrinkled 
deep in time ' ; on that incarnate and imperishable ' spirit of 
sense,' to whom at the very last 

" ' The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch, 
That hurts, and is desired.' 

To him, as to the dying husband of Octavia, this creature of his 
own hand might have boasted herself that the loveliest and purest 
among all her sisters of his begetting, 

' With her modest eyes 
And still conclusion, shall acquire no honour, 
Demurring upon me.' 

To sum up, Shakespeare has elsewhere given us in ideal incarna- 
tion the perfect mother, the perfect wife, the perfect daughter, 
the perfect mistress, or the perfect maiden : here only once for 
all he has given us the perfect and the everlasting woman." 

In what sense Mr. Swinburne uses the word *' perfect," it would 
be hard to decide. Verily, nothing more crazy has ever been said 
in Shakespearian criticism. 

If such rapture had a real basis — if Cleopatra, as dramatically 
presented, were to impress readers generally as she appears to 
have impressed the poet-critic, the moral spirit of the Play would 
be far below the Shakespearian standard. Shakespeare's art, exer- 
cised, as it evidently was, to shut Cleopatra off from our sym- 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 2/5 

pathies, has not been successful in Mr. Swinburne's case. But the 
great artist could not have anticipated, with all his knowledge of 
human possibilities, any such susceptibility to female charms as 
he exhibits. 

Antony must, by his very constitution, be subordinate to Octa- 
vius — though the range of his nature is far greater than that of 
Octavius, which is comparatively Umited ; but its limitations are 
compensated for (so far, at least, as his civic abilities are con- 
cerned) by definiteness and positiveness. And he always knows 
"when to take occasion by the hand." The potentially great 
elements of Antony's nature are not organized into any practical 
effectiveness, and the strong sensual set of his nature induces a 
more and more chaotic condition of his powers. And, thus, it 
may be said, that his genius is rebuked by that of Octavius. 
There's a special dramatic exhibition of this in the 2d Scene of 
the 2d Act of the Play, and it is set forth by the Soothsayer in 
the 3d Scene of the 2d Act. 

Octavius says to Antony (A. II. Sc. ii. 71) : 

' ' I wrote to you 
When rioting in Alexandria : you 
Did pocket up my letter, and with taunts 
Did give my missive * out of audience. 

Ant. Sir, 

He fell upon me ere admitted : then 
Three kings I had newly feasted, and did want 
Of what I was i' the morning : " 

Here Antony admits his weakness. 

*' But next day 
I told him of myself; " 

i.e.y that he was under the influence of wine the day before. 

♦* Which was as much 
As to have ask'd him pardon. . . . 

Cces. You have broken 

The article of your oath, which you shall never 
Have tongue to charge me with." 
* messenger. 



276 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

Here Octavius speaks with warmth, and the would-be peace- 
maker, Lepidus, interposes : 

"Soft, Caesar. 

Ant. No, 

Lepidus, let him speak ; 
The honour is sacred which he talks on now. 
Supposing that I lacked it. But on, Caesar ; 
The article of my oath. 

C(Es. To lend me arms and aid when I required them ; 
The which you both denied. 

Ant. Neglected, rather ; 

And then when poison'd hours had bound me up 
From mine own knowledge." 

Another admission of his bad habits, which weakens his position. 

" As nearly as I may, 
I'll play the penitent to you : but mine honesty 
Shall not make poor my greatness, nor my power 
Work without it.* Truth is that Fulvia, 
To have me out of Egypt, made wars here ; 
For which myself, the ignorant motive, do 
So far ask pardon as befits mine honour 
To stoop in such a case." 

Here Antony's real sense of his inferiority to his young colleague 
is brought distinctly out, by an affectation of a sense of honor. 

♦'Z(?/. 'Tis noble spoken. 

Mec. If it might please you to enforce no further 
The griefs between ye : f to forget them quite 
Were to remember that the present need 
Speaks to atone J you. 

Lep. Worthily spoken, Mecaenas." 

These little interposed speeches of Lepidus very happily reveal 
the weak triumvir, who feels that it's best for himself that things 
be kept quiet. 



I 



* i.e., without mine honesty. 

t emphasize no further the grievances between you. 

X bring you at one, reconcile you. 



ANTOMY AND CLEOPATRA. 377 

''^ Eno. Or, if you borrow one another's love for the instant, you 
may, when you hear no more words of Pompey, return it again : you 
shall have time to wrangle in when you have nothing else to do. 

Ant. Thou art a soldier only ; speak no more. 

Eno. That truth should be silent I had almost forgot. 

Ant. You wrong this presence ; therefore speak no more. 

Eno. Go to, then ; yoiu: considerate stone." 

A very pregnant expression : I shall be as silent as a stone, and 
have the honour to assure you of my high consideration. 

*' C(E5. I do not much dislike the matter, but 
The manner of his speech ; for't cannot be 
We shall remain in friendship, our conditions * 
So differing in their acts. Yet, if I knew 
What hoop should hold us stanch, from edge to edge 
O' the world t I would pursue it." 

It must evidently be understood by the last speech, that a 
"hoop," and a very politic one, has been already decided upon 
by Octavius and his crafty counsellor, Agrippa. What follows 
shows this ; and affords a special illustration, too, of Antony's 
genius rebuked by Octavius's : 

'* Agr. Give me leave, Caesar. 

CcES. Speak, Agrippa. 

Agr. Thou hast a sister by the mother's side, 
Admired Octavia : great Mark Antony 
Is now a widower. 

CcBS. Say not so, Agrippa : 
If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof 
Were well deserved of rashness." 

This speech seems meant to convey the impression that the 
proposal of marriage between Antony and Octavia, intimated in 
the last speech of Agrippa, was something new to Octavius. But 
he evidently knows just what's coming from Agrippa. 

* temperaments, dispositions. 

t from one end of the world to the other. 



2yS ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

"■Ant. I am not married, Caesar: let me hear Agrippa further 
speak. 

Agr. To hold you in perpetual amity, 
To make you brothers, and to knit your hearts 
With an unslipping knot, take Antony 
Octavia to his wife ; whose beauty claims 
No worse a husband than the best of men ; 
Whose virtue and whose general graces speak 
That which none else can utter. By this marriage, 
All little jealousies, which now seem great, 
And all great fears, which now import * their dangers, 
Would then be nothing : truths would be tales, 
Where now half tales be truths : her love to both 
Would each to other and all loves to both, 
Draw after her. Pardon what I have spoke ; 
For 'tis a studied, not a present thought. 
By duty ruminated. 

Ant. Will Caesar speak ? 

Cces. Not till he hear how Antony is touch'd 
With what is spoke already. 

Ant. What power is in Agrippa, 

If I would say, * Agrippa, be it so,' 
To make this good ? 

Ccas. The power of Caesar, and 

His power unto Octavia. 

Ant. May I never 

To this good purpose, that so fairly shows. 
Dream of impediment ! — Let me have thy hand ; 
Further this act of grace, and from this hour 
The heart of brothers govern in our loves 
And sway our great designs ! 

Cces. There is my hand. 

A sister I bequeath you, whom no brother 
Did ever love so dearly ; let her live 
To join our kingdoms and our hearts, and never 
Fly off our loves again ! 

Lep. Happily, amen! 



* carry with them. 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 2/9 

Ant. I did not think to draw my sword 'gainst Pompey; 
For he hath laid strange courtesies and great 
Of late upon me : I must thank him only, 
Lest my remembrance suffer ill report ; 
At heel of that, defy him. 

Lep. Time calls upon's : 

Of us must Pompey presently be sought 
Or else he seeks out us. 

Ant. Where lies he ? 

CcBS. About the mount Misenum. 

Ant. What is his strength by land ? 

Cces. Great and increasing : but by sea 
He is an absolute master. 

Ant. So is the fame. 
Would we had spoke together ! Haste we for it : 
Yet, ere we put ourselves in arms, dispatch we 
The business we have talk'd of. 

Cces. With most gladness : 
And do invite you to my sister's view, 
Whither straight Fll lead you. 

Ant. Let us, Lepidus, 

Not lack your company. 

Lep. Noble Antonyj 

Not sickness should detain me. 

What a mere cipher poor Lepidus is ! To adopt a couplet from 
Churchill's " Gotham," he " attends at councils which he must not 
weigh, does what they bid, and what they dictate, say." 

In the next scene, the subordination of the Genius of Antony 
to that of Octavius, is set forth by the Soothsayer. This Shake- 
speare took from Plutarch and made the best use of. Plutarch 
says : " With Antonius there was a soothsayer or astronomer of 
Egypt, that could cast a figure, and judge of men's nativities, to 
tell them what should happen to them. He, either to please Cleo- 
patra, or else for that he found it so by his art, told Antonius 
plainly that his fortune (which of itself was excellent good, and 
very great) was altogether blemished and obscured by Caesar's for- 
tune : and therefore he counselled him utterly to leave his com- 



28o ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

pany, and to get him as far from him as he could. ' For thy 
demon,' said he (that is to say, the good angel and spirit that 
keepeth thee), ^is afraid of his: and being courageous and high 
when he is alone, becometh fearful and timorous when he cometh 
near unto the other.' Howsoever it was, the events ensuing proved 
the Egyptian's words true : for it is said, that as often as they two 
drew cuts for pastime, who should have anything, or whether they 
played at dice, Antonius always lost. Oftentimes when they were 
disposed to see cock-fight, or quails that were taught to fight one 
with another, Caesar's cocks or quails did ever overcome." 
In the Play we have, A. II. Sc. iii., beginning at loth line : 

Ant. Now ! sirrah ; you do wish yourself in Egypt ? 

Sooth. Would I had never come from thence, nor you 
Thither ! 

Aitt. If you can, your reason? 

Sooth. I see it in 

My motion,* have it not in my tongue: but yet 
Hie you to Egypt again. 

Ant. Say to me. 

Whose fortunes shall rise higher, Caesar's or mine? 

Sooth. Caesar's. 
Therefore, O Antony, stay not by his side : 
Thy demon, that thy spirit which keeps thee, is 
Noble, courageous, high, unmatchable, 
Where Caesar's is not ; but, near him, thy angel 
Becomes a fear, as being o'erpower'd : f therefore 
Make space enough between you. 

Ant. Speak this no more. 

Sooth. To none but thee ; no more, but when to thee. 
If thou dost play with him at any game, 



* in the movement of my soul, intuitively, 
t Macbeth says of Banquo : 

" There's none but he 
Whose being I do fear; and under him 
My Genius is rebuk'd, as it is said 
Mark Antony's was by Caesar." 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 28 1 

Thou art sure to lose ; and, of that natural luck, 
He beats thee 'gainst the odds : thy lustre thickens* 
When he shines by : I say again, thy spirit 
Is all afraid to govern thee near him ; 
But, he away, 'tis noble. 

Ant. Get thee gpne ; 

Say to Ventidius I would speak with him : {Exit Soothsayer. 
He shall to Parthia. Be it art or hap, 
He hath spoken true : the very dice obey him ; 
And in our sports my better cunning f faints 
Under his chance : if we draw lots, he speeds ; % 
His cocks do win the battle still of mine, 
When it is all to nought ; § and his quails ever 
Beat mine, inhoopM,l| at odds. I will to Egypt: 
And though I make this marriage for my peace, 
P the east my pleasure lies." 

Antony and Octavius have done what the keen-sighted Eno- 
barbus foresaw they would do, and therefore proposed the same 
(A. II. Sc. ii.), namely, " borrowed one another's love for the 
instant," in order the better to dispose of the troublesome Sextus 
Pompeius. The reconciliation of the two triumvirs (the flimsiness 
and purely politic character of which Pompey doesn't appear to 
suspect), and the military operations which are on foot, against 
him, dispose him to accept the offer made him by the triumvirate, 
and the conditions involved therein. His attitude as the son of 
Cneius Pompeius Magnus, and as the feeble representative, or 
relic, of the old republican constitution, and his evanescent rela- 
tion to the historical movement of the play, are exhibited in the 
6th Scene of the 2d Act. Though regarding himself as the repre- 
sentative of the old republican constitution, he inconsistently agrees 
with the triumvirate to accept a slice of the Roman world : 



* thy brightness grows dim; "light thickens, and the crow makes wing to 
the rooky wood." — Macbeth, A. III. Sc. ii. 50. 

t skill. J has success. 

§ " When the odds are as everything to nothing." 

Ij "Confined within a circle to keep them * up to the scratch,' " 



282 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

" Pom. Your hostages I have, so have you mine ; 
And we shall talk before we fight. 

CcEs. Most meet 

That first we come to words ; and therefore have we 
Our written purposes before us sent ; 
Which, if thou hast considered, let us know 
If 'twill tie up thy discontented sword, 
And carry back to Sicily much tall youth 
That else must perish here. 

Po7n. To you all three, 

The senators alone of this great world, 
Chief factors * for the gods, I do not know 
Wherefore my father should revengers want, 
Having a son and friends ; since Julius Caesar, 
Who at Philippi the good Brutus ghosted, f 
There saw you labouring for him. What was't 
That moved pale % Cassius to conspire ; and what 
Made the all-honour'd, honest Roman, Brutus, 
With the arm'd rest, courtiers of beauteous freedom, 
To drench the Capitol ; but that they would 
Have one man but a man ? § And that is it 
Hath made me rig my navy ; at whose burthen 
The angerM ocean foams ; with which I meant 
To scourge the ingratitude that despiteful Rome 
Cast on my noble father. 



agents. f appeared to, as a ghost. 

X " Cces. Let me have men about me that are fat: 
Sleek -headed men and such as sleep o' nights : 
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; 
He thinks too much : such men are dangerous." 

— Julius Caesar, A. I. Sc. ii. 191-194. 
§ " Cces. When went there by an age, since the great flood, 

But it was famed with more than with one man? 
When could they say till now, that talk'd of Rome, 
That her wide walls encompass'd but one man? 
Now is it Rome indeed and room enough, 
When there is in it but one only man." 

— Julius Caesar, A. I. Sc. ii. 143-148. 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 283 

CcBS. Take 3'our time. 

Ant. Thou canst not fear * us, Pompey, with thy sails ; f 
We'll speak with thee at sea : at land, thou know'st 
How much we do o'er-count thee. 

Pom. At land, indeed, 

Thou dost o'er-count me of my father's house. J 
But, since the cuckoo builds not for himself, § 
Remain in't as thou mayst. 

Lep. Be pleased to tell us — 

For this is from the present H — how you take 
The offers we have sent you. 

CcBS. There's the point. 

Ant. Which do not be entreated to, but weigh 
What it is worth embraced. 

CcEs. And what may follow, 

To try^ a larger fortune. 

Pom. You have made me offer 

Of Sicily, Sardinia ; and I must 
Rid all the sea of pirates ; then, to send 
Measures of wheat to Rome ; this greed upon, 
To part with unhack'd edges, and bear back 
Our targes undinted. 

CcEs. Ant. Lep. That's our offer. 



* affright. f ships, navy. 

X " At land indeed thou dost exceed me in possessions, having added to 
thy own my father's house. O'er-cotint seems to be used equivocally, and 
Pompey perhaps meant to insinuate that Antony not only outnumbered, but 
\i?Ld over-reached him.^^ Plutarch says: "When Pompey's house was put to 
open sale, Antonius bought it; but when they asked him money for it, he 
made it very strange and was offended with them." Again: "Whereupon 
Antonius asked him [Sextus Pompeius], ' And where shall we sup? ' 'There,' 
said Pompey; and showed him his admiral galley, which had six benches of 
oars: ' That,' said he, ' is my father's house they have left me.' He spake it 
to taunt Antonius, because he had his father'' s house, that was Pompey the 
Great." — Malone. 

§ " Since, Hke the cuckoo, that seizes the nests of other birds, you have 
invaded a house which you could not build, keep it while you can." — Johnson 

II apart from the present business. 

^ And what bad consequences may follow in trying for a larger fortune. 



284 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

Pom. Know, then, 

I came before you here a man prepared 
To make this offer : but Mark Antony 
Put me to some impatience : though I lose 
The praise of it by telling, you must know, 
When Cassar and your brother were at blows, 
Your mother came to Sicily and did find 
Her welcome friendly. 

Ant. I have heard it, Pompey ; 

And am well studied for a liberal thanks * 
Which I do owe you. 

Pom. Let me have your hand : 

I did not think, sir, to have met you here. 

Ant. The beds i' the east are soft ; and thanks to you, 
That caird me timelier than my purpose hither ; 
For I have gain'd by't. 

CcBs. Since I saw you last. 

There is a change upon you. 

Pom. Well, I know not 

What counts harsh fortune casts upon my face ; f 
But in my bosom shall she never come. 
To make my heart her vassal. 

Lep. Well met here. 

Po7n. I hope so, Lepidus. Thus we are agreed : 
I crave our composition % may be written. 
And seaPd between us. 

C(Es. That's the next to do. 

Po7n. We'll feast each other ere we part ; and let's 
Draw lots who shall begin. 

Ant. That will I, Pompey. 

Potn. No, Antony, take the lot : § but, first 
Or last, your fine Egyptian cookery 
Shall have the fame. I have heard that Julius Caesar 
Grew fat with feasting there. 



* " a " used with reference to " thanks " as an abbreviated expression, 
t " Metaphor from making marks or lines in casting accounts." — War- 
burton, \ agreement. 
§ By metonomy for result of lot. 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 285 

jlnt. You have heard much.* 

Pom. I have fair meanings, sir, . . . 
Aboard my galley I invite you all : 
Will you lead, lords? 

Cces. Ant. Lep. Show us the way, sir. 

Pom. Come." 

Throughout this scene, Shakespeare follows his original in its 
minutest details. But of Pompey's entertainment on board his 
admiral galley, which is made by Shakespeare so dramatically 
important a scene in the Play, Plutarch simply says, " and there " 
(meaning on his galley) "he welcomed them and made them 
great cheer." But Shakespeare, knowing that wine reveals as well 
as disguises, that " in vino est Veritas,'' made this banquet the 
means of characterizing and contrasting the triumvirs, and the 
poor relic of republican Rome, Sextus Pompeius. This scene 
exhibits that Shakespearian irony which plays so freely with all 
things, regardless of all conventional ideas of high and low, great 
and small. 

What an affliction this scene, if he ever read it, must have 
been to Thomas Rymer, the author of " A Short View of Tragedy ; 
it's Original Excellency and Corruption. With some Reflections 
on Shakespear, and other Practitioners for the Stage. 1693 " ! He 
must have gone into a rage about the indignity with which Shake- 
speare treats the masters of the world, as if they were not different 
from common mortals. (See his criticisms of Othello and Julius 
C^sar in his "Short View.") One great and common merit of 
all Shakespeare's characters, both men and women, is, that his men 
are men, and his women are women, before they are anything else 
— before they are kings or queens, princes or princesses, lords or 
ladies. They are not mounted on the stilts of rank, but tread the 
common mother earth. " One of the most formidable adversaries 
of true poetry," says Godwin,t " is an attribute which is generally 

* There is impUed in " much," that Antony thinks he has heard also of his 
excesses. Pompey, recognizing what is implied, says, " I have fair meanings, 
sir." t " Life of Geoffrey Chaucer," 1803, Vol. I. p. 324- 



286 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

miscalled dignity. Shakespeare possessed, no man in higher per- 
fection, the true dignity and loftiness of the poetical afflatus, which 
he has displayed in many of the finest passages of his works with 
miraculous success. But he knew that no man ever was, or ever 
can be, always dignified. He knew that those subtler traits of 
character which identify a man, are familiar and relaxed, pervaded 
with passion, and not played off with an eternal eye to decorum," 

*' Scene VII. On board Po7npefs galley, off Misenum. 
Music plays. Enter two or three Servants with a banquet.* 

First Serv. Here they'll be, man. Some o' their plants are ill-rooted 
already ; f the least wind i' the world will blow them down. 

Sec. Serv. Lepidus is high-coloured. 

First Serv. They have made him drink almsdrink.J 

Sec. Serv. As they pinch one another by the disposition,§ he cries 
out "No more;" reconciles them to his entreaty, || and himself to the 
drink. 

First Serv. But it raises the greater war between him and his dis- 
cretion. 

Sec. Serv. Why, this it is to have a name in great men's fellow- 
ship : I had as lief have a reed that will do me no service as a partisan 
I could not heave. 

First Serv. To be called into a huge sphere, and not to be seen to 
move inH, are the holes where eyes should be, which pitifully disaster 
the cheeks." 



* dessert. 

t A play on the words "plants" and "ill-rooted"; they are unsteady on 
their feet, from drinking. 

X According to Warburton, " a phrase, amongst good fellows, to signify that 
liquor of another's share which his companion drinks to ease him"; but per- 
haps it rather means, as Schmidt explains, " the leavings." Warburton adds, 
" It satirically alludes to Caesar and Antony's admitting him into the trium- 
virate, in order to take off from themselves the load of envy." But that's 
attributing too deep a meaning to the servant's speech. 

§ " try each other by banter." 

II he is still disposed to be the peace-maker, even when drunk. 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 28/ 

The last two speeches characterize well the position of Lepidus 
in the triumvirate, but they seem too wise for the servants to utter. 

''A sennet sounded. Enter C^sar, Antony, Lepidus, Pompey, 
Agrippa, Mec^enas, Enobarbus, Menas, with other captains. 

Atit. [To Ccesarr\ Thus do they, sir : they take the flow o' the Nile 
By certain scales i' the pyramid ; they know. 
By the height, the lowness, or the mean, if dearth 
Or foison follow ; the higher Nilus swells, 
The more it promises : as it ebbs, the seedsman 
Upon the slime and ooze scatters his grain, 
And shortly comes to harvest." 

There's an air of sohdity in this speech, which indicates a con- 
sciousness on the part of the speaker, that he has imbibed quite 
freely, and therefore assumes a solid tone of speech. But he is in 
pretty good possession of himself, as he has been well seasoned in 
Egypt, and can bear a great deal. Lepidus breaks in upon their 
talk: 

" Lep. YouVe strange serpents there. 
Ant. Ay, Lepidus. 

Lep. Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the opera- 
tion of your sun : so is your crocodile. 
Ant. They are so. 

Pom. Sit, — and some wine ! A health to Lepidus ! 
Lep. I am not so well as I should be, but I'll ne'er out.* 
Eno. Not till you have slept ; I fear me you'll be in f till then." 

No incidental remarks divert Lepidus from the interest which 
has been awakened in his mind, in regard to Egypt, its serpents 
and crocodiles and pyramids. He continues : 

" Lep. Nay, certainly, I have heard the Ptolemies' pyramises are very 
goodly things ; wiUiout contradiction, I have heard that." 

He is too far gone to get the d into " pyramides." Charles 
Cowden Clarke well remarks : " His feeble attempt at scientific 



* back out. t " in for it. 



288 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

inquiry, in the remark concerning ' your serpent of Egypt/ his 
flabbily persistent researches touching 'your crocodile,' and his 
limp recurrence to his pet expression, ' strange serpent,' are all 
conceived in the highest zest of comic humour." 

" Men. \Aside to Pom.'\ Pompey, a word. 

Pom. \_Aside to Men.l Say in mine ear what is't? 

Men. [Aside to Pom.~\ Forsake thy seat, I do beseech thee, captain, 
And hear me speak a word. 

Pofn. [Aside to Men."] Forbear me till anon. This wine for Lepi- 
dus!" 

But he'll not be turned aside from his interest in the crocodile, 
and inquires : 

" Lep. What manner o' thing is your crocodile ? 

Ant. It is shaped, sir, like itself; and it is as broad as it hath 
breadth : it is just so high as it is, and moves with it own organs : it 
lives by that which nourisheth it ; and the elements once out of it, it 
transmigrates. 

Lep. What colour is it of ? 

Ant. Of it own colour too. 

Lep. ''Tis a strange serpent. 

Ant. 'Tis so. And the tears of it are wet. 

Cas. Will this description satisfy him? 

Ant. With the health that Pompey gives him, else he is a very 
epicure." 

What contempt is shown, in these speeches of Antony and Oc- 
tavius, for poor Lepidus, now that he is, through drink, far below 
his weak, sober self ! 

''Pom. [Aside to Men.] Go hang, sir, hang! Tell me of that? 
Away ! 
Do as I bid you. Where's this cup I call'd for? 

Men. [Aside to Pom.] If for the sake of merit thou wilt hear me, 
Rise from thy stool. 

Pom. [Aside to Men.] I think thou'rt mad. The matter? 

[Pises, and walks aside. 
Men, I have ever held my cap off to thy fortunes. 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 289 

Pom. Thou hast served me with much faith. What's else to say? 
Be jolly, lords." 

The attentive host is shown here. Withdrawn from his guests 
by Menas, he interrupts his speech by caUing to them, " Be jolly, 
lords." 

" Ant. These quicksands, Lepidus, 

Keep off them, for you sink. 

Meti. Wilt thou be lord of all the world? 

Pom. What say'st thou ? 

Men. Wilt thou be lord of the whole world? Thafs twice. 

Pom. How should that be? 

Men. But entertain it, 

And, though thou think me poor, I am the man 
Will give thee all the world. 

Pom. Hast thou drunk well? 

Men. No, Pompey, I have kept me from the cup. 
Thou art, if thou darest be, the earthly Jove : 
Whatever the ocean pales, or sky inclips. 
Is thine, if thou wilt ha't. 

Pom. Show me which way. 

Men. These three world-sharers, these competitors, 
Are in thy vessel : let me cut the cable ; 
And, when we are put off, fall to their throats : 
All there is thine." 

Pompey's reply shows that he " would not play false, and yet 
would wrongly win." 

** Pom. Ah, this thou shouldst have done, 

And not have spoke on't ! In me 'tis villainy ; 
In thee't had been good service. Thou must know, 
'Tis not my profit that does lead mine honour ; 
Mine honour, it. Repent that e'er thy tongue 
Hath so betray'd thine act : being done unknown, 
I should have found it afterwards well done ; 
But must condemn it now. Desist, and drink. 

Men. \_Aside.'\ For this, 
I'll never follow thy pall'd fortunes more. 



290 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

Who seeks, and will not take when once 'tis ofFer'd, 
Shall never find it more. 

Po7n. This health to Lepidus ! 

Ant. Bear him ashore. I'll pledge it for him, Pompey. 

Eito. Here's to thee, Menas ! 

Men. Enobarbus, welcome ! 

Potn. Fill till the cup be hid. 

Eiio. There's a strong fellow, Menas. 

{Pomting to the Attendant who carries off Lepidus. 

Men. Why? 

Eno. A' bears the third part of the world, man ; see'st not ? 

Men. The third part, then, is drunk : would it were all, 
That it might go on wheels ! 

Eno. Drink thou ; increase the reels. 

Men. Come. 

Pom. This is not yet an Alexandrian feast. 

Ant. It ripens towards it. Strike the vessels, ho ! 
Here is to Caesar ! 

Cces. I could well forbear' t. 

It's monstrous labour, when I wash my brain, 
And it grows fouler. 

Ant. Be a child o' the time. 

Cces. Possess it, I'll make answer : 
But I had rather fast from all four days 
Than drink so much in one." 

Significant speeches. Antony is a child of the time in a much 
fuller sense than he means — he is possessed by it ; while Octavius 
possesses it, is master of it. 

^'■Eno. Ha, my brave emperor ! \To Antony. 

Shall we dance now the Egyptian Bacchanals, 
And celebrate our drink? 

Pojn. Let's ha't, good soldier. 

Ant. Come, let's all take hands. 
Till that the conquering wine hath steep'd our sense 
In soft and delicate Lethe. 

Eno. All take hands. 

Make battery to our ears with the loud music : 



ANTON V AND CLE OPA TRA . 29 1 

The while I'll place you ; then the boy shall sing ; 
The holding * every man shall bear as loud 
As his strong sides can volley. 

IMust'c plays. Enobarbus places t/iem hand in hand. 

The Song. 

Come, thou monarch of the vine, 
Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne ! 
In thy fats our cares be drown'd, 
With thy grapes our hairs be crown'd : 
Cup us, till the world go round, 
Cup us, till the world go round ! 

Cczs. What would you more ? " 

Every speech of Octavius in this scene shows that, though in 
the revels, he is not of them. He simply endures them as a 
necessary evil, for the time being. "What would you more?" 
shows that he has been a reluctant but politic attendant, and is 
impatient to have them over. After bidding Pompey good night, 

he says to Antony : 

"Good brother, 
Let me request you off: our graver business 
Frowns at this levity. Gentle lords, let's part : 
You see we have burnt our cheeks : strong Enobarb 
Is weaker than the wine : and mine own tongue 
Splits what it speaks : the wild disguise hath almost 
Antick'd us all.f What needs more words? Good night. 
Good Antony, your hand. 

Pom. I'll try you on the shore. 

Ant. And shall, sir : give's your hand. 

Pom. O Antony, 

You have my father's house, — But, what? we are friends. 
Come, down into the boat." 

Clarke calls this a " capital bit of maudlin, half lingering resent- 
ment, half drunken magnanimity of forgiveness." 



burden. t made antics or buffoons of us all. 



292 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

" Eno. Take heed you fall not. 

{Exeunt all but Enobarbus and Menas. 
Manas, Til not on shore. 

Men. No, to my cabin. 

These drums! these trumpets, flutes! what! 
Let Neptune hear we bid a loud farewell 
To these great fellows : sound and be hang'd, sound out ! 

{Sotmd a flourish with dru??is. 

Eno. Ho ! says a\ There's my cap. 

Men. Ho! Noble captain, come." {Exeunt. 

Menas is a grand old representative servant of a time that has 
passed away. 

There is no other scene in all the Plays of Shakespeare, per- 
haps, which exhibits a more complete dramatic identification on 
the part of the poet, than this banquet scene. There must have 
been, at the time of his writing it, the fullest sympathetic repro- 
duction within himself, of the several characters. 

The reconciliation which has been patched up between the sev- 
eral leading actors in the drama, cannot last long, as it is based 
merely on pohcy, and is quite inconsistent with the state of things, 
with the irresistible drift of things — the drift toward imperialism. 
Octavius is the only one who sees through this pohtic reconciliation, 
and knows, with an assurance double sure, what the upshot will be. 
He alone represents the main drift of things, in which the spirit 
of Caesar is the immanent controUing principle. 

Antony goes back, as soon as he can, to the flesh-pots of Egypt, 
and when the aflairs of the Empire shall reach their flood tide 
(which they very soon will), Antony, with all his moral sinews 
severed, will be helplessly swallowed up in this flood tide, while 
Octavius will be wafted upon it, to "solely sovereign sway and 
masterdom." The two men unite in illustrating what Brutus says 
in Julius Caesar (A. IV. Sc. iii. 218-221) : 

" There is a tide in the aifairs of men, 
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune." 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 293 

That is illustrated by Octavius. 

" Omitted, all the voyage of their life 
Is bound in shallows and in miseries." 

That is illustrated by Antony. 

In the Scene between Enobarbus and Eros, the 5th of the 3d 
Act, we learn what has been done, since the Triumvirate was 
restored to a provisional harmony, through the dexterous manage- 
ment of Octavius. The Scene is Athens, where Antony now is 
with Octavia. 

" Eno. How now, friend Eros ! 

Eros. There's strange news come, sir. 

Eno. What, man? 

Eros. Caesar and Lepidus have made wars upon Pompey. 

Eno. This is old : what is the success ? 

Eros. Caesar, having made use of him in the wars 'gainst Pompey, 
presently denied him rivality ; * would not let him partake in the glory 
of the action : and not resting here, accuses him of letters he had for- 
merly wrote to Pompey ; upon his own appeal, f seizes him : so the poor 
third is up X till death enlarge his confine, 

Eno. Then, world, thou hast a pair of chaps, no more ; 
And throw between them all the food thou hast, 
They'll grind the other. Where's Antony? 

Eros. He's walking in the garden — thus ; and spurns 
The rush that lies before him : cries ' Fool Lepidus ! ' 
And threats the throat of that his officer 
That murdered Pompey. 

Eno. Our great navy's rigg'd. 

Eros. For Italy and Caesar. More, § Domitius ; 
My lord desires you presently: || my news 
I might have told hereafter. 

Eno. 'Twill be naught : 

But let it be. Bring me to Antony. 

Eros. Come, sir." {^Exeunt. 



associateship, equality. f impeachment. | shut up. 

§ I've more to tell you. 1| immediately. 



294 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

Enobarbus shows by his last speech, that he has no more hopes 
for Antony — that in desiring him immediately, he can have noth- 
ing to devise which will be worth anything. Antony makes Octa- 
vius's doings since he left Rome, the occasion of sending Octavia 
back to Rome as a mediator. In the east his pleasure lies, and 
he's glad to get rid of her. Poor Octavia is in a situation not 
unlike, but more pathetic than, that of Blanch of Castile, in King 
John. She says in the preceding scene, in reply to Antony's 
complaint of Octavius : 

" Oct. O my good lord, 

Believe not all ; or, if you must believe. 
Stomach * not all. A more unhappy lady. 
If this division chance, ne'er stood between, 
Praying for both parts : 
The good gods will mock me presently, f 
When I shall pray, ' O, bless my lord and husband ! ' 
Undo that prayer, by crying out as loud, 
* O, bless my brother ! ' Husband win, win brother, 
Prays, and destroys the prayer ; no midway 
'Twixt these extremes at all 4 

Ant. Gentle Octavia, 

Let your best love draw to that point, which seeks 
Best to preserve it : if I lose mine honour, 
I lose myself; better I were not yours 
Than yours so branchless. But as you requested. 
Yourself shall go between's ; the meantime, lady, 
ril raise the preparation of a war 
Shall stain § your brother ; make your soonest haste ; 
So your desires are yours. 



* resent. t immediately. 

% Compare this speech with that of Blanch (King John, A. III. Sc. i. 331- 

336): 

" Husband, I cannot pray that thou mayst win; 

Uncle, I needs must pray that thou mayst lose; 
Father, I may not wish the fortune thine; 
Grandam, I will not wish thy wishes thrive: 
Whoever wins, on that side shall I lose; 
Assured loss before the match be play'd." 
§ eclipse. 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 29$ 

Oct. Thanks to my lord. 

The Jove of power make me most weak, most weak, 
Your reconciler ! Wars 'twixt you twain would be 
As if the world v/ould cleave, and that slain men 
Should solder up the rift. 

Ant. When it appears to you where this begins, 
Turn your displeasure that way ; for our faults 
Can never be so equal, that your love 
Can equally move with them. Provide your going ; 
Choose your own company, and command what cost 
Your heart has mind to." [Exeunt. 

In the 6th Scene, Octavius gives expression to the grievances 
which Antony's conduct in Egypt is causing him, if grievances 
they can be called which afford him a pretext for doing just what 
he desires to do. He has got rid of Lepidus and Pompey, and his 
purpose is now to get rid of Antony and rule alone ; and toward 
this end, Antony, in his crazy infatuation, is himself co-operating 
— is doing more than Octavius himself. Octavius's consummate 
skill as a politician is especially shown in his securing the willing 
co-operation of those who are in his way, toward the realization 
of his ambitious aims. They are entrapped into the belief that 
they are advancing their own individual interests while they are 
exclusively advancing his own. 

" They see the card that falls, — he knows 
The card that followeth." * 

Octavius says to Agrippa and Mecaenas : 

" Contemning Rome, he has done all this, and more, 
In Alexandria ; here's the manner oft : 
r the market-place, on a tribunal silvered, 
Cleopatra and himself in chairs of gold 
Were publicly enthroned: at the feet sat 
Caesarion, whom they call my father's son, 
And all the unlawful issue that their lust 



* Adapted from Rossetti's " Card Dealer." 



296 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

Since then has made between them. Unto her 
He gave the stablishment of Egypt ; made her 
Of lower Syria, Cyprus, Lydia, 
Absolute queen. 

Mec. This in the public eye? 

CcBs. In the common show-place, where they exercise . . . 
The people know it ; and have now received 
His accusations. 

Agr. Who does he accuse ? 

CcBS. Cccsar : and that, having in Sicily 
Sextus Pompeius spoil'd, we had not rated him 
His part o' the isle : then does he say, he lent me 
Some shipping unrestored : lastly, he frets 
That Lepidus of the triumvirate 
Should be deposed ; and, being, that we detain 
All his revenue. 

Agr. Sir, this should be answer'd. 

CcBs. 'Tis done already, and the messenger gone." 

Octavius is a man of dispatch. He is always fully up to, if not 
ahead of, time. Keen-eyed ambition, such as his " on occasion's 
forelock watchful waits." * 

Octavia enters with her train. Her brother expresses great 
surprise at her having come as a market-maid to Rome. The ex- 
travagance of his language is evidently designed to exhibit his 
insincerity : 

"... the wife of Antony 
Should have an army for an usher, and 
The neighs of horse to tell of her approach 
Long ere she did appear ; the trees by the way 
Should have borne men ; and expectation fainted, 
Longing for what it had not ; nay, the dust 
Should have ascended to the roof of heaven. 
Raised by your populous troops ; but you are come 
A market-maid to Rome ; and have prevented 
The ostentation of our love, which, left unshown 



* "Paradise Regained," IIL 173. 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 29/ 

Is often left unloved ; * we should have met you 
By sea and land ; supplying every stage 
With an augmented greeting. 

Oct. Good my lord, 

To come thus was I not constrain'd, but did 
On my free will. My lord, Mark Antony, 
Hearing that you prepared for war, acquainted 
My grieved ear withal ; whereon, I begg'd 
His pardon f for return. 

CcBs. Which soon he granted, 

Being an abstract % 'tween his lust and him. 

Oct. Do not say so, my lord. 

CcBs. I have eyes upon him, 

And his affairs come to me on the wind. § 
Where is he now.'* 

Oct. My lord, in Athens. 

Cces. No, my most wronged sister ; Cleopatra 
Hath nodded him to her. He hath given his empire 
Up to a whore ; who || now are levying 
The kings o' the earth for war : . . . 

Oct. Ay me, most wretched, 

That have my heart parted betwixt two friends 
That do afflict each other ! 

CcBS. Welcome hither : 

Your letters did withhold our breaking forth ; 
Till we perceived, both how you were wrong led, 
And we in negligent danger.^ Cheer your heart : 
Be you not troubled with the time, which drives 
O'er your content these strong necessities ; 
But let determined things to destiny** 



* deprived of its character as love. 

t leave, permission, with the implied idea of apologizing for the same. 

X As Schmidt explains, " the shortest way for him and his desires, the readi- 
est opportunity to encompass his wishes." Most editors substitute " obstruct," 
suggested by Warburton. 

§ A revelation of his keen-eyed ambition which " on occasion's forelock 
watchful waits." || " who " = and they. 

f danger due to negligence. ** things determined to destiny. 



298 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

Hold unbewail'd their way. Welcome to Rome ; 
Nothing more dear to me. You are abused 
Beyond the mark of thought : and the high gods, 
To do you justice, make them ministers 
Of us and those that love you. Best of comfort ; * 
And ever welcome to us. 

Agr. Welcome, lady. 

Mec. Welcome, dear madam. 
Each heart in Rome does love and pity you : 
Only the adulterous Antony, most large 
In his abominations, turns you off; 
And gives his potent regiment f to a trull, % 
That noises it § against us. 

Oct. Is it so, sir? 

Cces. Most certain. Sister, welcome : pray you. 
Be ever known to patience : my dear'st sister ! " {^Exeunt. 

Octavius feigns a brotherly affection so well that the reader is 
apt to be deceived, and to lose sight of the fact that he is really 
only carrying out a purpose which he had when he gave his sist-er 
in marriage to Antony — that purpose being to have a plausible 
occasion for breaking with Antony and, by force of arms, getting 
him out of the way in the sovereignty of the Roman world. Antony 
has acted just as he supposed he would, and Enobarbus, to whom 
the dramatic situation seems to be ever revealed, saw clearly what 
the result of the marriage would be. He says to Menas (A. II. 
Sc. vi.) : " You shall find the band that seems to tie their friend- 
ship together will be the very strangler of their amity. Octavia is 
of a holy, cold, and still conversation. Menas. Who would not 
have his wife so? Enobarbus. Not he that himself is not so; 
which is Mark Antony. He will to his Egyptian dish again : 
then shall the sighs of Octavia blow the fire up in Caesar ; and, 
as I said before, that which is the strength of their amity shall 
prove the immediate author of their variance. Antony will use 



* Optative : " best of comfort " be to you. t rule, sway. 

% harlot. § Used indefinitely. Gr. 226. 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 



299 



his affection where it is; he married but his occasion here." 
Enobarbus is "as good as a chorus." The whole situation of 
things, in their successive stages, can be read in his speeches. 

Shakespeare often, as does a cunning artist in color, produces 
effects by a few slight touches — places distinctly before us a per- 
sonality with which we are brought into a sympathetic relationship, 
though that personalty says and does very httle in a play. It must 
not be supposed that the dramatic artist defined to himself, with 
any distinctness, such a personality. By his artistic skill he was 
able to produce a certain impressioi upon the feehngs, as a color 
artist produces a certain impression upon the eye. 

Octavia is a signal illustration of this. How little she says and 
does ! And yet through that little we are made so to feel the 
beauty of her womanhood, that it serves, along with the other 
dramatic agencies employed to that end, to deepen our sense of 
the ruin wrought by " fleshly lusts which war against the soul." 
This "gem of women" cannot withhold Antony from his "Egyp- 
tian dish." He returns to the poisonous food, which will now 
soon do for him its fatal work. 

All things are now ready for the final conflict — a conflict which 
will not only bring the historical movement to its goal, namely, 
the " solely sovereign sway and masterdom " of Octavius, but 
(and this is really the leading purpose of the drama, the other 
being rather the dramatic background) the bondage of Antony 
will be exhibited, in this final conflict, in the boldest relief. But 
the great artist will not allow him to be entirely divorced from 
our sympathies. The nobler qualities of his nature which have, 
at times, suffered a total eclipse, will come out sufficiently to 
assure us that they are not altogether destroyed. 

Against the advice of his Heutenant-general, Canidius, and the 
clear-sighted, sagacious Enobarbus, and the entreaty of a veteran 
soldier, he persists in his purpose of fighting by sea. The 7th 
Scene of the 3d Act exhibits this persistence, which has no other 
basis than the caprice of the woman to whom he is a slave. 



300 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

" Scene VII. Near Actiiim. Antonyms camp. 
Enter Cleopatra and Enobarbus. 

Cleo, I will be even with thee, doubt it not. 

Eno. But why, why, why? 

Cleo. Thou hast forspoke * my being in these wars, 
And say'st it is not fit. 

Eno. Well, is it, is it? 

Cleo. Is't not denounced against us ? f why should not we 
Be there in person ? . . . 

Eno. Your presence needs must puzzle Antony ; 
Take from his heart, take firom his brain, from's time, 
What should not then be spared. He is already 
Traduced for levity ; and His said in Rome 
That Photinus an eunuch and your maids 
Manage this war. 

Cleo. Sink Rome, and their tongues rot 

That speak against us ! A charge we bear i' the war, 
And, as the president of my kingdom, will 
Appear there for a man. Speak not against it ; 
I will not stay behind. 

Eno. Nay, I have done. 

Here comes the emperor. 

Enter Antony and Canidius. 

Ant. Is it not strange, Canidius, 

That from Tarentum and Brundusium 
He could so quickly cut the Ionian sea, 
And take in % Toryne? You have heard onH, sweet? 

Cleo. Celerity is never more admired 
Than by the negligent. 

Ant. A good rebuke. 

Which might have well becomed the best of men, 
To taunt at slackness. Canidius, we 
Will fight with him by sea. 

Cleo. By sea ! what else ? 

Can. Why will my lord do so? 



* spoken against, f " Is not the war declared against us? " % capture. 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 3OI 

Ant. For that he dares us toH. 

E710. So hath my lord dared him to single fight. 

Can, Ay, and to wage this battle at Pharsalia, 
Where Caesar fought with Pompey : but these offers, 
Which serve not for his vantage, he shakes off; 
And so should you." 

Antony gets the best advice from his advisers, but this best 
advice only serves to exhibit his crazy persistence in what will 
result in his ruin. His " wit's diseased." 

" Eno. Your ships are not well mann'd ; 

Your mariners are muleteers, reapers, people 
Ingross'd by swift impress ; * in Caesar's fleet 
Are those that often have 'gainst Pompey fought: 
Their ships are yare ; t yours, heavy : no disgrace 
Shall fall you for refusing him at sea, 
Being prepared for land. 

Ant. By sea, by sea. 

Eno. Most worthy sir, you therein throw away 
The absolute soldiership you have by land ; 
Distract your army, which doth most consist 
Of war-mark'd footmen ; leave unexecuted 
, Your own renowned knowledge ; quite forego 
The way which promises assurance ; and 
Give up yourself merely % to chance and hazard, 
From firm security. 

Ant. Fll fight at sea. 

Cleo. I have sixty sails, Caesar none better. 

Ant. Our overplus of shipping will we burn ; 
And, with the rest full-mann'd, from the head of Actium 
Beat the approaching Caesar. But if we fail, 
We then can do't at land. 

Enter a Messenger. 

Thy business? 
Mess. The news is true, my lord ; he is descried ; 
Caesar has taken Toryne. 



' got together by hurried impressment or levy." 
light and manageable." % wholly, entirely. 



302 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

Ant. Can he be there in person? 'tis impossible; 
Strange that his powers should be." 

Octavius's rapid movements arc in strong contrast with Antony's 

dallying foolery. 

*' Canidius, 
Our nineteen legions thou shah hold by land, 
And our twelve thousand horse. We'll to our ship." 

And then, addressing Cleopatra, he says, '* Away, my Thetis ! " 
i.e., my sea-nymph ; in which is implied that he regards himself 
already as Neptune, god of the sea, and Cleopatra as his Thetis. 

•* Enter a Soldier. 

How, now, worthy soldier? 
Sold. O noble emperor, do not fight by sea; 
Trust not to rotten planks : do you misdoubt 
This sword and these my wounds? Let the Egyptians 
And the Phoenicians go a-ducking : • we 
Have usedt to conquer, standing on the earth, 
And fighting foot to foot. 

Ant. Well, well: away! 

[Exeunt Antony, Clkopatra, and Enobarrus. 
So/(f. By Hercules, I think I am i' the right. 
Can. Soldier, thou art : but his whole action grows 
Not in the power on't ; so our leader's led, 
And we are women's men. 



* i.f., as ducks on the water. 

t been accustomed. Shakespeare follows Plutarch closely here : " Now as 
he was setting his men in order of battle, there was a captain, a valiant man, 
that had served Antonius in many battles and conflicts, and had all his body 
hacked and cut; who, as Antonius passed by him, cried unto him and said: 
' ( ) noble emperor, how cometh it to pass that you trust to these vile, brittle 
ships? What, do you mistrust these wounds of mine, and this sword? Let 
the Egyptians and Phoenicians fight by sea, and set us on the main land, 
where we use [are accustomed] to conquer or to be slain on our feet.' An- 
tonius passed him by and said never a word, but only beckoned to him with 
hi-i band and head, as though he willed him to be of good courage, although 
in k-?.i, he had no great cournj^c himself." 



ANTONY AND CLEOrATKA. 303 

Sold. Vou keep by land 

The legions and the horse whole, do you not? 

Can. Marcus Octavius, Marcus Justcius, 
Publicola, and Caelius, are for sea: 
But we keep whole by land. This speed of Cxsar's 
Carries beyond belief. 

Sold. While he was yet in Rome, 

His power went out in such distractions as 
Beguiled all spies. 

Can. Who's his lieutenant, hear you? 

Sold. They say, one Taurus. 

Can. Well 1 know the man. 

Enter a Messenger. 

Mess. The emperor calls Canidius. 

Can. With news the time's with labour, and throes forth. 
Each minute, some." \^Exeunt. 

The calamitous result of the sea-fight is told in the loth Scene. 
Cleopatra's ship, " the Antoniad, the Egyptian admiral, with all 
their sixty, fly and turn the rudder " ; and '* she once being loofd, 
the noble niin of her magic, Antony, claps on his sea-wing, and, 
like a doaiing mallard, leaving the fight in height, flics after her." 
When Canidius, who has been commanding the land forces, learns 
of the disa.ster, he says : " To Cxsar will I render my legions and 
my horse ; si.x kings already show me the way of yielding." 'I'hc 
saddened but still faithful Enobarbus replies : ** I'll yet follow the 
wounded chance of Antony, though my reason sits in the wind 
against me." 

The disastrous consequences of his insane persistence to fight 
at sea, in spite of all entreaty to the contrary, cause Antony to 
rise to a deep and mortifying sense of his infatuation and enslave- 
ment. It is in representing the moral struggle which ensues that 
he is kept within the pale of our sympathy. He is not wholly 
despicable. He is capable of feeling the degradation of his situa- 
tion. To his attendants he says : " Hark ! the land bids me tread 
no more upon't ; it is ashanTed to bear me!" He thinks of 
Philippi, and what he showed himself there. Octavius, he says. 



304 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

*' Kept 
His sword e'en like a dancer, while I struck 
The lean and wrinkled Cassius ; and 'twas I 
That the mad Brutus ended : he alone 
Dealt on lieutenantry, and no practice had 
In the brave squares of war ; yet now — no matter." 

But the " serpent of old Nile " soon has him again in her bril- 
liant folds. Weeping, she says : 

'' O my lord, my lord, 
Forgive my fearful sails ! I little thought 
You would have follow'd. 

Ant. Egypt, thou knew'st too well 

My heart was to thy rudder tied by the strings, 
And thou shouldst tow me after : o'er my spirit 
Thy full supremacy thou knew'st, and that 
Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods 
Command me. 

Cleo. O, my pardon ! 

Ant. Now I must 

To the young man send humble treaties, dodge 
And palter in the shifts of lowness ; who 
With half the bulk o' the world play'd as I pleased, 
Making and marring fortunes. You did know 
How much you were my conqueror ; and that 
My sword, made weak by my affection, would 
Obey it on all cause. 

Cleo. Pardon, pardon ! 

Ant. Fall not a tear, I say ; one of them rates 
All that is won and lost : give me a kiss ; 
Even this repays me.* We sent our schoolmaster; 
Is he come back? Love, I am full of lead. 
Some wine, within there, and our viands ! Fortune knov/s 
We scorn her most when most she offers blows." {Exeunt. 



* " He holds a dubious balance : — yet that scale, 
Whose freight the world is, surely should prevail? 
No; Cleopatra droppeth into this 
One counterpoising orient sultry kiss." 
"Epigrams of Art, Life, and Nature." By William Watson. Ep. 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 305 

At this point, when a kiss can counterpoise " that scale, whose 
freight the world is," the fatality of an overmastering passion has 
fully set in. Antony can withdraw from the sovereignty of the 
world, but cling to Cleopatra he must, till he die. 

In the next Scene, his ambassador, Euphronius, presents his 
humiliating petition to Octavius : 

" Lord of his fortunes he salutes thee, and 
Requires * to live in Egypt : which not granted 
He lessens his requests ; and to thee sues 
To let him breathe between the heavens and earth, 
A private man in Athens : this for him. 
Next, Cleopatra does confess thy greatness ; 
Submits her to thy might ; and of thee craves 
The circle f of the Ptolemies for her heirs, 
Now hazarded to thy grace." 

Octavius's reply expresses the attitude which the imperturbable 
victor will maintain to the end. Antony and he must not together 
"breathe between the heavens and earth." 

" For Antony, 
I have no ears to his request. The queen 
Of audience nor desire shall fail, so she 
From Egypt drive her all-disgraced friend. 
Or take his life there : this if she perform. 
She shall not sue unheard. So to them both." 

Octavius, in the same scene, when the ambassador goes out, 

instructs Thyreus to try his eloquence to win Cleopatra from 

Antony : 

" Promise, 

And in our name, what she requires ; add more, 

From thine invention, offers : women are not 

In their best fortunes strong ; but want will perjure 

The ne'er-touch'd vestal : try thy cunning, Thyreus ; 

Make thine own edict for thy pains, which we 

Will answer as a law, . . . 



* requests. t crown. 



306 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

Observe how Antony becomes his flaw,* 
And what thou think'st his very action speaks 
In every power f that moves." 

In the next Scene, to Cleopatra's question, *' Is Antony or we in 
fault for this ? " Enobarbus replies ; 

" Antony only, that would make his will 
Lord of his reason. What though you fled 
. . . why should he follow? 
The itch of his aifection should not then 
Have nick'd his captainship ; at such a point, 
When half to half the world opposed, he being 
The meered question : :j: 'twas a shame no less 
Than was his loss, to course your flying flags, 
And leave his navy gazing." 

When Antony learns from Euphronius the answer of Octavius 
to his petition, his feelings vent themselves in merely " wild and 
whirHng words " about his victor's youth and resources ; and he 

adds : 

'' I dare him therefore 
To lay his gay comparisons § apart, 
And answer me decHned,|l sword against sword. 
Ourselves alone. Fll write it : follow me." 

When he goes out with Euphronius, Enobarbus comments on 
the emptiness of his words : 

"Yes, like enough, high-battled *If Caesar will 
Unstate ** his happiness, and be staged ft to the show, 



* " conforms himself to this breach of his fortune." 

t " bodily organ." See Troilus and Cressida, A. IV. So. v. 55-57. 

I " he being the only cause and subject of the war." 

§ " all things which are in his favor when compared with me." 

II " fallen in fortune." 

^ " commanding proud armies." 
** " Divest of state and dignity his good fortune." 
tt " exhibited on the stage against a gladiator." 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 307 

Against a sworder ! I see men's judgments are 

A parcel of their fortunes : * and things outward 

Do draw the inward quality after them, 

To suffer all alike. That he should dream, 

Knowing all measures, the full Csesar will 

Answer his emptiness ! Caesar, thou hast subdued 

His judgment too. . . . 

Mine honesty and I begin to square. f 

The loyalty well held to fools does make 

Our faith mere folly." 

But in the next sentence he shows the reluctance of his dis- 
affection : 

"Yet he that can endure 
To follow with allegiance a fallen lord 
Does conquer him that did his master conquer. 
And earns a place i' the story," 

Antony returns and comes upon Thyreus kissing the hand of 
Cleopatra. He is inflamed with jealous rage, and orders the 
messenger from Octavius to be soundly whipped. She for whom 
he has sacrificed a world he fears is untrue to him. He comes to 
a sense of his degradation : 

** When we in our viciousness grow hard 

(Oh misery on't) the wise gods seel our eyes. 
In our own filth drop our clear judgments, make us 
Adore our errors, laugh afs while we strut 
To our confusion." \ 

But he is soon overcome by Cleopatra's artful and lachrymose 
appeals. Her control over him is absolute. What remains of his 
moral sense goes for nothing. In his weak violence, or rather 
violent weakness, as her slave, he ejaculates : 

♦* I will be treble-sine w'd, hearted, breathed. 
And fight mahciously : for when mine hours 



' of a piece with their fortunes." f quarrel. \ destruction. 



308 ANTONY AND CLEOPA TRA, 

Were nice and lucky, men did ransom lives 
Of me for jests : but now, I'll set my teeth, 
And send to darkness all that stop me." 

And see the preparation he proposes for all this ! 

" Come, 
Let's have one other gawdy night : * call to me 
All my sad Captains, fill our bowls once more : 
Let's mock the midnight bell. 

Cleo. It is my birth-day : 

I had thought to have held it poor : but since my lord 
Is Antony again, I will be Cleopatra." 

There's an unconscious and pathetic if not ludicrous irony in 
this speech : ** but since my lord is Antony again," really means, 
he has returned to his weak and sensual self; " I will be Cleo- 
patra," that is, she will be again the fascinating serpent of old 
Nile. When all go out but Enobarbus, we have from him again 
a comment on the emptiness of Antony's words and on his 
weak violence : 

** Now he'll outstare the lightning. To be furious, 
Is to be frighted out of fear ; and in that mood 
The dove will peck the estridge ; and I see still, 
A diminution in our Captain's brain 
Restores his heart ; when valour preys on reason, 
It eats the sword it fights with. I will seek 
Some way to leave him." 

A second battle results in a temporary advantage to Antony's 
forces on land — a mere " lightning before death " — which is fol- 
lowed by the utter destruction of the Egyptian fleet. Antony 
believes, and perhaps truly, that Cleopatra has betrayed him. 
(That she was not indisposed to do so, seems to be intimated in 
her interview with Thy reus.) 

" Betray'd I am : 
Oh this false soul of Egypt ! this grave charm, f 



joyous, festive. f fatal charmer. 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 309 

Whose eye beck'd forth my wars, and call'd them home : 
Whose bosom was my crownet, my chief end, 
Like a right gipsy, hath, at fast and loose,* 
Beguiled me to the very heart of loss. f 

Enter Cleopatra. 

Ah, thou spell? Avaunt! 

Cleo. Why is my lord enraged against his love ? 

Ant. Vanish, or I shall give thee thy deserving, 
And blemish Caesar's triumph. Let him take thee. 
And hoist thee up to the shouting plebeians : 
Follow his chariot, like the greatest spot 
Of all thy sex; most monster-Uke,J be shown 
For poorest diminutives, for dolts, § and let 
Patient Octavia plough thy visage up 
With her prepared nails. {Exit Cleopatra. 

'Tis well thouVt gone, 
If it be well to live ; but better 'twere 
Thou fell'st into my fury, for one death 
Might have prevented many. . . . 

The witch shall die : 
To the young Roman boy she hath sold me, and I fall 
Under this plot ; she dies for't." 

Here it would appear that all the ties which have bound him to 
Cleopatra have been severed. But it is not so, and Cleopatra pro- 
ceeds to prove it not so. In the next Scene she instructs Mardian 
to tell him she has slain herself: 

" Say, that the last I spoke was 'Antony' ; 
And word it, prithee, piteously : hence, Mardian, 
And bring me how he takes my death." 

What has become the mainspring of Antony's being in this 
world, he feels is broken, and that, therefore, nothing now remains 



* a cheating game. t the extremity of loss. 

J " as a monster, or monstrosity." 

§ " be made a show for the lowest and stupidest of the people." 



310 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

for him but to die. With a sense of the dispersion and fading 
out of all earthly things, a sense which shows the remains of a 
noble nature, he says, to the faithful Eros : 

** Sometime we see a cloud that's dragonish, 
A vapour sometime, like a bear or lion, 
A tower'd citadel, a pendent rock, 
A forked mountain, or blue promontory 
With trees upon't, that nod unto the world. 
And mock our eyes with air: thou hast seen these signs ; 
They are black vesper's pageants. 

Eros. Ay, my lord. 

Ant. That which is now a horse, even with a thought 
The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct, 
As water is in water. 

Eros. It does, my lord. 

Afit. My good knave Eros, now thy captain is 
Even such a body : here I am Antony ; 
Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave. 
I made these wars for Egypt, and the queen, — 
Whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine, 
Which whilst it was mine had annex'd unto't 
A million moe, now lost, — she, Eros, has 
Packed cards with Caesar, and false-play'd my glory 
Unto an enemy's triumph. 
Nay, weep not, gentle Eros ; there is left us 
Ourselves to end ourselves." 

But when he is told by Mardian that Cleopatra is dead, the love 
which has proved so fatal to him, reasserts itself, and the desire 
to be reunited to her determines him to follow her to the shades 
and there to weep for pardon. 

" I will overtake thee, Cleopatra, and 
Weep for my pardon. So it must be, for now 
All length is torture ; since the torch is out, 
Lie down, and stray no farther : now all labour 
Mars what it does ; yea, very force entangles 
Itself with strength : seal then, and all is done. 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 3II 

Eros ! — I come, my queen : — Eros ! — Stay for me : 
Where souls do couch on flowers, we'll hand in hand, 
And with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze : 
Dido and her ^Eneas shall want troops, 
And all the haunt be ours. Come, Eros, Eros ! 

Re-enter Eros. 

Eros. What would my lord? 

Ant. Since Cleopatra died, 

I have lived in such dishonour, that the gods 
Detest my baseness. I, that with my sword 
Quarter'd the world, and o'er green Neptune's back 
With ships made cities, condemn myself to lack 
The courage of a woman ; less noble mind 
Than she which by her death our Caesar tells 
' I am conqueror of myself.' Thou art sworn, Eros, 
That, when the exigent * should come, which now 
Is come indeed, when I should see behind me 
The inevitable prosecution f of 
Disgrace and horror, that, on my command, 
Thou then wouldst kill me : do't ; the time is come : 
Thou strikest not me, 'tis Caesar thou defeat'st. 
Put colour in thy cheek. 

Eros. The gods withhold me ! 

Shall I do that which all the Parthian darts, 
Though enemy, lost aim, and could not ? 

Ant. Eros, 

Wouldst thou be window'd % in great Rome and see 
Thy master thus with pleach'd § arms, bending down 
His corrigible || neck, his face subdued 
To penetrative ^ shame, whilst the wheel'd seat 
Of fortunate Caesar, drawn before him, branded 
His baseness that ensued? ** 

Eros. I would not see't. 

Ant. Come, then ; for with a wound I must be cured. 



* exigency. f pursuit. % stationed at a window. § folded. 

II submissive to correction. t affecting the heart strongly. 

** branded the baseness of him that followed. 



312 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

Draw that thy honest sword, which thou hast worn 
Most useful for thy country. 

Eros. O, sir, pardon me! 

Ant. When I did make thee free, sworest thou not then 
To do this when I bade thee ? Do it at once ; 
Or thy precedent services are all 
But accidents unpurposed. Draw, and come. 

Eros. Turn from me, then, that noble countenance, 
Wherein the worship of the whole world lies. 

Ant. Lothee! {Turning from him. 

Eros. My sword is drawn. 

Ant. Then let it do at once 

The thing why thou hast drawn it. 

Eros. My dear master. 

My captain, and my emperor, let me say. 
Before I strike this bloody stroke, farewell. 

Ant. 'Tis said, man ; and farewell. 

Eros. Farewell, great chief. Shall I strike now? 

A7it. Now, Eros. 

Eros. Why, there then : thus I do escape the sorrow 
Of Antony's death. {Kills himself . 

Ant. Thrice nobler than myself! 

Thou teachest me, O valiant Eros, what 
I should, and thou couldst not. My queen and Eros 
Have by their brave instruction got upon me 
A nobleness in record : but I will be 
A bridegroom in my death, and run intoH 
As to a lover's bed. Come, then : and, Eros, 
Thy master dies thy scholar : to do thus 

{Falling on his sword. 
I learn'd of thee. How I not dead? not dead? 
The guard, ho ! O, dispatch me ! 

Dercetas and Guard enter. They refuse to do his bidding and 
go out. Diomedes enters, sent by Cleopatra to say, 

" She had a prophesying fear 
Of what hath come to pass : for when she saw — 
Which never shall be found — you did suspect 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 313 

She had disposed with Ccesar, and that your rage 
Would not be purg'd, she sent you word she was dead ; 
But, fearing since how it might work, hath sent 
Me to proclaim the truth, —and I am come, 
I dread, too late." 

A message in which one deception is admitted, and another 
substituted. 

Antony is borne by the guard to the monument where Cleopatra 
has locked herself. She heaps upon him expressions of her affec- 
tion, in words and kisses. He enjoins upon her to seek of Caesar 
her honor with her safety, and to trust none about Caesar but 
Proculeius. In regard to himself, he reposes overmuch, for our 
full sympathy, upon his past : 

" The miserable change now at my end 
Lament nor sorrow at ; but please your thoughts 
In feeding them with those my former fortunes 
Wherein I lived, the greatest prince o' the world, 
The noblest ; and do now not basely die, 
Nor cowardly put off my helmet to 
My countryman, — a Roman by a Roman 
Valiantly vanquished. Now my spirit is going; 
I can no more. 

Cleo. Noblest of men, woo't die? 

Hast thou no care of me ? shall I abide 
In this dull world, which in thy absence is 
No better than a sty? Oh see, my women, [Antony dies. 
The crown o' the earth doth melt. My lord? 
Oh withered is the garland of the war, 
The soldier's pole * is fall'n : young boys and girls 
Are level now with men ; the odds is gone, 
And there is nothing left remarkable f 
Beneath the visiting moon. \^Faints. 

Char. Oh quietness, lady ! 

Iras. She is dead too, our sovereign. 

Char. Lady ! 



loadstar," Schmidt. f worthy of consideration. 



314 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

Iras. Madam ! 

Char. O madam, madam, madam ! 

Iras. Royal Egypt, 

Empress ! 

Char. Peace, peace, Iras ! 

Cleo. No more, but e'en a woman, and commanded 
By such poor passion as the maid that milks 
And does the meanest chares.* It were for me 
To throw my sceptre at the injurious f gods ; 
To tell them that this world did equal theirs 
Till they had stoPn our jewel. AlPs but naught ; 
Patience is sottish,J and impatience does 
Become a dog that's mad : then is it sin 
To rush into the secret house of death. 
Ere death dare come to us? How do you, women? 
What, what ! good cheer ! Why, how now, Charmian? 
My noble girls ? Ah, women, women ! look. 
Our lamp is spent, it's out ! Good sirs,§ take heart : 
We'll bury him ; and then, what's brave, what's noble, 
Let's do it after the high Roman fashion, 
And make death proud to take us. Come, away; 
This case of that huge spirit now is cold : 
Ah, women, women! come; we have no friend 
But resolution, and the briefest end." 

The 5 th Act belongs to Cleopatra. All in it is relative to her. 
If her love for Antony had become the mainspring of her being, 
as Antony's love for her had become the mainspring of his being, 
the 5th Act would hardly have been needed. " The difference 
between her and Antony," says Denton J. Snider, " is seen in the 
fact that she is willing to survive him, but he was not wilHng to 
survive her : separation does not mean death in her case. There 
is, however, no doubt about her love for Antony, but there is as 
little doubt about her readiness to transfer it to another person. 



* turns of work; A. S. cyrr, a turn. 

t acting against justice or right. \ Endurance is foolish. 

§ For this use of "sirs," see Love's Labor's Lost, A. IV. Sc. iii. 211. 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 315 

She has been making provision for the future — she has been 
laying plans to catch Octavius in her toils. He comes into her 
presence, but he is not charmed ; his cool head cannot be turned 
by sensuous enchantment. This seals her fate. She has met her 
master; she has found the man who is able to resist her spell. 
The proof is manifest — she learns that Octavius intends to take 
her to Rome to grace his triumph. This secret is confided to her 
by Dolabella, who seems to be the last victim of her magical 
power. That power is now broken; nothing remains except to 
die. Still, she shows signs of a better nature in this latter part — 
misfortune has ennobled her character : 

" ' My desolation begins to make a better life. 

" The heroic quahties of Antony, now that he is gone, and she 
can captivate no new hero, fill her imagination ; she will go and 
join him in the world beyond. Her sensual hfe seems purified 
and exalted as she gives expression to her 'immortal longings.' 
Her deepest trait is, however, conquest through sensual love ; she 
will live as long as she can conquer ; when her spell is once over- 
come she will die, dwelling in imagination upon the greatest vic- 
tory of her principle, and upon its most illustrious victim." 



3l6 JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 



JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 

(First Folio versus "Cambridge" Edition.) 



OF the First Folio, J. Payne Collier remarks ("Memoirs of the 
Principal Actors in the Plays of Shakespeare," pp. 69, 70), 
" The book does credit to the age, even as a specimen of typog- 
raphy : it is on the whole remarkably accurate, and so desirous 
were the editors and printers of correctness, that they introduced 
changes for the better, even while the sheets were in progress 
through the press." 

This, perhaps, is too strongly stated. It is too strongly stated. 
But the typographical errors with which the book swarms have 
led many editors to put too low an estimate on its authority, and 
to prefer many quarto texts. The editors of the '' Cambridge " 
edition say, " In Hamlet we have computed that the Folio, when 
it differs from the Quartos, differs for the worse in forty-seven 
places, while it differs for the better in twenty at most." The 
following "Jottings," I am bold to say, show this statement to be 
very wide of the mark. The punctuation, too, of the First Folio, 
faulty as it frequently is, is often better than theirs. 

In the present unsettled and irregular use of the note of inter- 
rogation and the note of exclamation, I do not expect that all 
who take the trouble to read these " Jottings " will, in every case 
where the Folio has a ? and the " Cambridge " an !, agree with me 
in my preference for the ? of the Folio. But I claim that, as both 
are rhetorical, the general rule laid down by Wilson, that, " after 
words to which an answer is expected or implied, the note of in- 
terrogation is added ; and after those, though apparently denoting 



JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 317 

inquiry, where no answer is intended by the writer to be given, 
the note of exclamation is the proper and distinctive mark," can- 
not be justified ; and more than that, its observance, in pointing 
the text of Shakespeare, often leads to a misconception of the 
meaning. When, in expressing a feeling of surprise, a mental 
question is involved as to the truth or possibility of what occasions 
the surprise ; as, for example, when Horatio tells Hamlet that he 
thought he saw his father the previous night, and Hamlet replies, 
"The King my father," the note of interrogation should most 
certainly be used. The note of exclamation would tend to mis- 
lead the reader. " Indeed ! " represents a different feeling, and, 
consequently, a different elocution, from "Indeed?" Given in 
reply to something that has been said, " Indeed ! " would indicate 
an unquestioning surprise, — the information occasioning it being 
accepted as the truth. '' Indeed ! " should, in such case, be read 
with a direct downward inflection of the voice. " Indeed ? " on the 
other hand, while also indicating surprise, indicates, at the same 
time, a question in the mind of the speaker as to the truth or the 
possibility of the information occasioning it, and should be read 
with a strong interrogative movement of voice — the unequal up- 
ward wave, the upward inflection of the wave passing through a 
considerably wider interval than the downward. This distinction 
in the use of these two rhetorical notes (for I claim that they are 
strictly rhetorical, the authorities to the contrary notwithstanding), 
is observed in the Folio with a remarkable uniformity. 

I am ready to admit the frequent faultiness of the punctuation 
of the Folio, — a faultiness extending sometimes to absurdity; 
for example, "Making the Greene one, Red," which has, however, 
had its defenders ; but I am persuaded, after a careful study of 
the Folio in respect to the punctuation, that, whoever did the 
pointing, whether the author, in the original manuscript, the editors, 
which is not very likely, or the proof-reader, if there was one, or 
the printer, it was done with a remarkable regard to the spoken 
language. And this is especially true in respect to the notes of 
interrogation and of exclamation. On the other hand, I am per- 



3l8 JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 

suaded, after an equally careful study of the punctuation and 
numerous other features of the "Cambridge" text, that the editors 
were not in the habit of voicing the language — that they studied 
it through the eye, and, in regard to punctuation, followed certain 
prescribed rules ; and thus went astray in many particulars. 

It is remarkable how many features of Elizabethan English, ex- 
hibited by the early texts of Shakespeare's Plays, are ehminated 
in modern "critical" texts. Exact reprints of the First Folio 
text would be much better for students of the language of the 
time, than the texts presented in school editions of the Plays, in 
which- subjunctives and their subjects are often converted, by 
punctuation, into imperatives and vocatives, respectively; pure 
infinitives, after certain verbs, into imperatives ; word forms and 
contracted forms of the time, changed to those of the present, 
etc., etc. 

These "Jottings " were privately printed some years ago to set 
forth some of the unrecognized merits of the First Folio text of 
Hamlet, and to help to induce a conservativeness on the part of 
Shakespeare students and editors. Dr. Horace Howard Furness 
has incorporated most of them in the notes to his New Variorum 
edition of Hamlet. 



EDITIONS OF HAMLET REFERRED TO IN THE NOTES. 



THE 
Tragi call Historie of 

HAMLET 

Prince of Denmarke. 

By William Shake-speare. 

As it hath beene diuerse times acted by his Highnesse ser- 
uants in the Cittie of London : as also in the two V- 
niuersities of Cambridge and Oxford, and else-where. 

At London printed for N. L. and lohn Trundell. 
1603. 



JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 319 

Referred to as the ist Quarto. Two copies only are known to 
exist ; one is in the Library of the Duke of Devonshire, and wants 
the last leaf containing the 22 concluding Hnes ; the other is in 
the British Museum, and is without the title-page. 

"The edition of 1603 is obviously a very imperfect reproduc- 
tion of the play, and there is every reason to believe that it was 
printed from a manuscript surreptitiously obtained." — Editors 
Cambridge edition. 

THE 
Tragicall Historic of 

HAMLET, 

- Prince of Denmarke. 

By William Shakespeare. 

Newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as much 
againe as it was, according to the true and perfect 
Coppie. 

AT. LONDON, 

Printed by I, R. for N. L. and are to be sold at his 

shoppe vnder Saint Dunstons Church in 

Fleetstreet. 1604. 

Referred to as the 2d Quarto ; is of chief authority among the 
Quarto editions. 

The 3d Quarto, printed from the same forms as the 2d, was 
pubhshed in 1605 ; the 4th, in 161 1 ; the 5th is without date, but 
the Cambridge editors are of the opinion that it was printed from 
the edition of 161 1 ; the 6th, printed from the 5th, was published 
in 1637. 

Editions known as Players' Quartos, were published in 1676, 
1685, 1695, ^^^ i7<^3- The variations which their texts exhibit 
from the earlier editions, are without any known authority. But 
the Cambridge editors state "that many emendations usually 
attributed to Rowe and Pope are really derived from one or other 
of these Players' Quartos." 

The I St Folio was published under the following title : 



320 JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 

Mr. WILLIAM 

SHAKESPEARES 

COMEDIES, 
HISTORIES, & 
TRAGEDIES. 

Published according to the True Originall Copies. 



PORTRAIT. 



LONDON 

Printed by Isaac laggard, and Ed. Blount. 1623. 

In this volume, "The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke," 
occupies, in the division of Tragedies, pages 152 to 156, then the 
numbering passes to 257 and continues to the end of the play, 
page 282 (but pages 279 and 282 are misprinted 259 and 280) ; 
page 278 copies var)'. 

The Editors were tv/o of Shakespeare's personal friends and 
fellow actors, John Heminge and Henry Condell, whose long 
professional experience, dating back to the beginning of Shake- 
speare's theatrical career, and probably earlier, and continuing 
some years after his death, must have made them familiar with 
the authorized texts of his plays, and with their renderings on 
the stage of the time. 

Our positive knowledge of Heminge's connection with theatri- 
cal affairs extends back to 1596, twenty years before the death 
of Shakespeare, when, it appears, he was already of some consid- 
eration as an actor. He survived his great friend more than 
fourteen years, dying in October, 1630. Our earliest knowledge 
of Henry Condell is, that in 1598, he sustained a part in Ben 
Jonson's "Every Man in his Humour"; according to Collier's 
conjecture, he was the Captain Bobadill of that comedy. His 
connection with the stage continued up to the time of his death 



JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OE HAMLET. 32 1 

in December, 1627. He appears to have been held in high 
esteem by his theatrical associates. 

The wills * of these two men show them to have possessed con- 
siderable property, to have had strict business habits and great 
uprightness of character, and to have been affectionate husbands 
and fathers. Shakespeare honored them with an expression of 
his regard, in the following item of his will : 

" I gyve and bequeath . . . to my fellowes John Hemynges, 
Richard Burh age, and Henry Cundell, xxvj.'- viij.^- a peece to buy 
them ringesr 

They express their regard for their "Friend and Fellow" in 
their Dedication of the First Folio edition of his plays, wherein 
they say, " We haue but collected them, and done an office to the 
dead, to procure his Orphanes, Guardians ; without ambition 
either of selfe-profit, or fafne : onely to keepe the memory of so 
woi'thy a Friend, 6^ Fellow aliue, as was our Shakespeare, by 
hufnble offer of his playes, to your ?nost noble patronage.'' 

The Dedication is addressed 

TO THE MOST NOBLE 

And 

INCOMPARABLE PAIRE 

OF BRETHREN. 

VV I L L I A M 

Earle of Pembroke, &c. Lord Chamberlaine to the 

Kings most Excellent Maiesty. 

AND 

Philip 

Earle of Montgomery, &c. Gentleman of his Maiesties 

Bed-Chaniber. Both Knights of the most Noble Order 

of the Garter, and our singular good 

LORDS. 



* Published in " Memoirs of the Principal Actors in the Plays of Shake- 
speare." By J. Payne Collier, Esq., F.S.A. London : printed for the Shake- 
speare Society, 1846. 



322 JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 

"The text of Hamlet given in the Folio of 1623 is not derived 
from any of the previously existing Quartos, but from an indepen- 
dent manuscript. Many passages are found in the Folio which 
do not appear in any of the Quartos. On the other hand many 
passages found in the Quartos are not found in the Folio. It 
is to be remarked that several of those which appear in the Folio 
and not in the Quarto of 1604 or its successors, are found in 
an imperfect form in the Quarto of 1603, and therefore are not 
subsequent additions. Both the Quarto text of 1604 and the 
Folio text of 1623 seem to have been derived from manuscripts 
of the play curtailed, and curtailed differently, for purposes of 
representation." From Preface to Volume VIII. of " Cambridge " 
edition. 

The 2d, 3d, and 4th Folios were pubHshed in 1632, 1663, and 
1685, respectively. The 3d was reissued in the following year 
(1664), with a new title-page, and seven additional Plays, not now 
regarded as by Shakespeare, though they may all have received 
some touches from his hand. They were repeated in the 4th 
Folio. These editions are of no special authority in the matter 
of the text. 



JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF SHAKESPEARE'S 
HAMLET. 

The three numbers used designate, respectively, the Act, Scene, and Line. 
F. stands for First Folio, C. fqr " Cambridge " edition. 

Where readings of the First Folio and of the " Cambridge " are given with- 
out remarks, it will be understood that the former are considered obviously 
preferable. 

1 . 1 . 30. Sit downe a-while, And let vs F. Sit down awhile ; 
And let us C. The meaning is. Sit down and let us etc. 

I. I. 40. Looke where it comes againe. F. Look, where etc. C. 

I. I. 49. By Heauen I charge thee speake. F. by heaven I 
charge thee, speak ! C. " speak " is an infinitive after " charge," 
and not an imperative as the C. makes it by the use of the 



JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 323 

comma. In line 51, it is an imperative, and is preceded in F. 
by a comma. 

I. I. 53. How now Horatio ? You tremble & look pale : F. 
How now, Horatio ! etc. C. The ? of the F. represents the elo- 
cution better ; " Horatio " should be uttered with an unequal up- 
ward wave, expressing the triumph of the speaker in the confirma- 
tion of his report of the appearance of the ghost. 

I. I. 70. Good now sit downe, & tell me he that knowes F. 
Good now, sit down, etc. C. " Good " may be a vocative, and 
"now" may belong to "sit down." But see Abbott, § 13. 

I. 2. II. With one Auspicious, and one Dropping eye, F. 
With an auspicious and a dropping eye, C. 

I. 2. 50. Dread my Lord, F. My dread lord, C. 

I. 2. 76. Seemes Madam? F. Seems, madam ! C. The ? 
represents the elocution again better than the ! 

1.2.85. passethshow; F. passes show ; C. The older form 
not only suits the tone of the passage better, but the two s''s and 
the sh in "pa^i-ei- sho^^ " coming together are very cacophonous. 

I. 2. 127. the Heauens shall bruite againe, F. the heaven 
etc. C. The plural form is the better here. 

I. 2. 132. O God, O God ! F. O God ! God ! C. The 
verse doesn't scan so well in the C. In the F., the ending er of 
"slaughter" should be read as an internal extra syllable: His 
can I non 'gainst | Selfe-slaught | er. | O God, | O God ! | And 
every reader would feel the want of the second "O " on which to 
dwell before uttering " God " with a strong aspiration. 

I. 2. 135. Fie on't? Oh fie, fie, F. Fie on't ! ah fie! C. 
" ah " doesn't express the feeling of the speaker so well. 

I. 2. 135. 'tis an vnweeded Garden That gi'owes to Seed: F. 
'tis an unweeded garden. That grows to seed : C. There should 
be no comma after " garden," as the relative clause is not used 
simply as an additional characterization of an unweeded garden, 
but as an inseparable part of the whole characterization — an im- 
portant distinction that should be made in pointing. 

I. 2. 153. Within a Moneth? Ere yet the salt etc. F. Within 



324 JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 

a month ; Ere yet the salt etc. C. The meaning is, Within a 
month [did I say] ? [Yea] Ere yet etc. 

I. 2. 159. But breake my heart, for I must hold my tongue. F. 
But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue ! C. " break " is 
a subjunctive, not an imperative, as it is made by the C. punctua- 
tion, and " heart " is a subject, not a vocative. 

I. 2. 170. I would not haue your Enemy say so ; F. I would 
not hear your enemy say so, C. cet. par., " have " is more euphoni- 
ous than "hear," by reason of " ear " in next line. Nor shall you 
doe mine eare that violence, 

I. 2. 171. mine eare F. my ear C. 

I. 2. 177. I pray thee doe not mock me (fellow Student) F. 
I prethee, etc. C. The F. reading suits the required deliberateness 
of the expression better. There is an earnest entreaty meant. 

I. 2. 183. Ere I had euer seene that ^2^^ Horatio. F. Or ever 
I had seen etc. C. The F. reading is better again for the preced- 
ing reason. 

I. 2. 191. The King my Father? F. The king my father ! C. 
This should be uttered with an inquiring wonder, which is better 
expressed by the ? 

1.2. 204. Whilst they bestil'd Almost to lelly F. whilst they, 
distill'd Almost to jelly C. " bestil'd " seems to be used as a strong 
form of * still'd," as the next hne, " Stand dumbe and speake not 
to him," shows. I get no meaning out of the other word. 

I. 2. 232. Pale, or red? F. Pale or red? C. The absence of 
the comma in the C. mars the meaning. Hamlet must be sup- 
posed to utter " Pale " as a thing of course, paleness being the 
conventional idea attached to a ghost. The word should be 
uttered with a faUing inflection, and then " or red " added, after 
a pause, with a certain anxious impatience : Pale, was he ? or red ; 
how was it? In other words, he hasn't the two ideas, '' pale " and 
"red" in his mind at once ; when he first speaks, he has only that 
of " Pale " upon which his voice rests. He then adds, somewhat 
impatiently, "or red?" A semicolon would mark the division 
better than a comma. 



JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 325 

I. 2. 239. His Beard was grisly? no. F. His beard was griz- 
zled? no? C. Hamlet is subjecting his friends to a searching 
examination, and when he asks the question, " His Beard was 
grisly?" he adds, with decision, '^no," as though he had caught 
them on this point. " no " should be read with a strong down- 
ward inflection. To show that he has not been caught, Horatio 
gives a specific reply, " It was as I have seen it in his life, A 
sable silver' dy 

I. 2. 241. He watch to Night; F. I will watch to-night; C. 
The " I " is strongly emphatic here, and it can be better made 
so in "I'll" than in "I will." It seems, too, that the abbre- 
viated form suits better Hamlet's off-hand mode of speech with 
his friends. 

I. 2. 242. I warrant you it will. F. I warrant it will. C. 

I. 2. 252. All. Our duty to your Honour. Ham. Your loue, 
as mine to you : F. Your loves, etc. C. " loue " is better, being 
used as opposed to " duty : " " love " should be uttered with a 
slow and deliberate downward wave : your love, I ask ; I don't 
wish you to act from a sense of duty alone, I ask your love in the 
matter. The old Quarto of 1603 throws light on the true mean- 
ing : " Our duties to your honor. Ham. O your loues, your 
loues," There is something similar in the i62d and 163d lines of 
this scene : Ho7'. The same my Lord, And your poore Seruant 
euer. Ha7n. Sir my good/n>;/^. He change that name with you : 
F. The italics are mine. Hamlet, though always princely, is 
impatient of certain conventional courtesies. 

I. 2. 254. My Fathers Spirit in Armes? F. My father's spirit 
in arms ! C. Here the ? is again better than the ! "Arms" should 
be uttered with a strong interrogative intonation, expressive of an 
inqtiiruig wonder. 

I. 2. 257. foule deeds will rise. Though all the earth ore whelm 
them to mens eies. F. foul deeds will rise. Though all the earth 
o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes. C. It is questionable as to 
whether the phrase, " to men's eyes," should be connected with 
"rise" in the preceding verse, or with "o'erwhelm." A reader 



326 JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET 

finds it awkward to connect it with "rise." The omission of the 
comma in the F. after " them, " thus connecting " to men's eyes " 
with " o'erwhelm," makes equally good sense and adapts the con- 
struction of the sentence better to its vocal expression. 

I. 3. I. My necessaries are imbark't; F. embark'd : C. There 
is no authority in the old editions for " embark'd." The 2d, 3d, 
and 4th Quartos read "inbark't; " the 5th and 6th, imbark't; the 
ist and 2d Folios, "imbark't," the 3d and 4th, "imbark'd." As 
applied to things, "imbark't" or "inbark't" seems preferable to 
" embark'd." 

I. 3. 5. For Hamlet, and the trifling of his fauours, F. fa- 
vour, C. 

I. 3. 8. Froward, not permanent; F. Forward, C. 

I. 3. 10. No more but so. F. No more but so? C. Here 
the C. follows Rowe's pointing. The Quartos and Fohos all have 
a period. This speech of Ophelia is certainly meant to express 
her submissiveness to her brother's opinion and not to question 
the correctness of it. 

I. 3. 12. his Temple F. this temple C. "his," in the F. 
stands for "nature : " as nature's temple grows, the service within 
widens. There is a metaphor imphed. Nature does not grow 
only in thews and bulk, but as nature's temple waxes in thews 
and bulk, the inward service of the mind and soul grows wide 
withal. 

I. 3. 21. The sanctity and health of the weole State. F. The 
safety and health of this whole state, C. "sanctity" is better 
than "safety," and "the" than "this," "state" being used ab- 
stractly. 

I. 3. 34. And keepe within the reare of your Affection; F. 
And keep you in the rear of your affection, C. "within" as 
opposed to "without," or outside of. 

I. 3. 40. the buttons F. their buttons C. 

I. 3. 46. watchmen F. watchman C. The plural seems better 
as referring to the several particulars of Laertes's advice. 

I. 3. 55. Yet heere Laertes ? F. Yet here, Laertes ! C. The 



JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 327 

? is better. The speech should be uttered to express an inquiring 
surprise. 

I. 3. 57. The winde sits in the shoulder of your saile, And 
yrou are staid for there : my blessing with you ; F. And you are 
fetay'd for. There ; my blessing with thee ! C. The punctuation 
of the C. is Theobald's, who in accordance with his understanding 
of "there," added the stage direction, "Laying his hand on 
Laertes's head." But " there " certainly means at the port, where 
the ship is all ready to sail, and the attendants are waiting for him. 
In the 83d line, Polonius says : " The time inuites you, goe, your 
seruants tend." 

I. 3. 59. See thou Character. F. Look thou character. C. 

1. 3. 62. The friends thou hast, and their adoption tride, 
Grapple them to thy Soule, with hoopes of Steele : F. Those 
friends thou hast, C. The use of " them " in next verse, makes 
"The" preferable to "Those" which serves to strengthen the 
pleonasm. 

2. 3. 68. thine eare ; F. thy ear, C. 

I. 3. 106. That you haue tane his tenders for true pay, F. 
these tenders C. " his " is decidedly better in the connection. 

I. 3. 109. Tender your selfe more dearly ; Or not to crack the 
winde of the poore Phrase, Roaming it thus, you'l tender me a 
foole. F. Running it thus— C. The C. reading is after Dyce 
(Colher conj.). It is not authorized by any of the Quartos, all 
of which read "Wrong," or of the FoHos, all reading "Roaming," 
which is probably right, Polonius having reference to his varying 
the application of the word " tender." 

I. 3. 120. For this time Daughter, Be somewhat scanter of 
your Maiden presence ; F. From this time be something scanter, 
etc. C. It may be that " For this " = For[th] this, the final 
th of " Forth " being absorbed, in pronounciation, in the initial 
ih of "this," a kind of absorption not unfrequent in Shake- 
speare. The F. verse, moreover, scans better : You must | not 
take I for fire. | For this | time Daught | er. In the scanning of 
the C. verse, "fire" must be made dissyllabic, and "From" a 



328 JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 

heavy syllable : You must | not take | for fi | re. From | this 
time. It will be observed, too, that the speech in which the verse 
occurs, is characterized by the double endings, and the F. verse 
is more in keeping therewith. 
I. 3. 127-131. 

" Doe not beleeue his vowes ; for they are Breakers, 
Not of the eye, which their Inuestments show : 
But meere implorators of vnholy Sutes, 
Breathing hke sanctified and pious bonds. 
The better to beguile." F. 

Not of that dye which their investments show, C. The reading 
of the C. is after the 6th Quarto, 1637. The 2d, 3d, 4th, and 
5th, Quartos read "that die," the Folios, "the eye," which is 
most probably right, " eye " being used, by metonymy, for " as- 
pect," " hue," " shade of colour." 

I. 3. 130. Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds, C. after 
Pope, ed. 2 (Theobald). The Quartos and Folios all agree in 
reading "bonds," which makes good sense. The general term 
" bonds," suggested, no doubt, by " brokers," is used for the more 
special term, " vows." " Breathing " refers back to "they," stand- 
ing for "vows" ; "bonds," involving the idea of " vows," should 
not receive the stress, in reading, which should be given to 
" pious." 

I. 4. 5. Indeed I heard it not : then it drawes neere the sea- 
son. Wherein the Spirit held his wont to walke. F. Indeed? I 
heard it not : it then etc. C. The ? of the C. is after Capell ; 
the 2d, 3d, 4th, and 5th, Quartos read "Indeed; I" the ist 
Quarto and all the Fohos, " Indeed I " the 6th Quarto, " Indeed, 
I " The use of the ? after " Indeed " imports an inquiring sur- 
prise which is not intended. 

I. 4. 17-38. Omitted in F. The last three lines of this pas- 
sage, which all the commentators have regarded as corrupt, the 
editors of the C. have left unaltered " because," as they say. Note 
VI., "none of the conjectures proposed appear to be satisfactory." 



JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 329 

" the dram of eale 
Doth all the noble substance of a doubt 
To his own scandal." 

"eale," whether it be a corrupt form of ''ill " or "evil," or what- 
ever it be, stands, as a general term, for " some vicious mole in 
nature," the " habit that too much o'er-leavens the form of plausive 
manners," the " one defect," just alluded to by Hamlet. All the 
difficulty of the passage is removed, I think, by understanding 
" noble," not as an adjective, as all the commentators have under- 
stood it, quahfying "substance," but as a noun opposed to "eale," 
and the object of "substance," a verb of which "doth" is aux- 
iliary. Thus : " the dram of eale doth all the noble, substance 
of" [;>., "with," a sense common in the English of the time,] "a 
doubt " [which works] " to his own scandal." " Substance " is 
used in the sense of " imbue with a certain essence " ; " his " is a 
neuter genitive, standing for " noble," and = " its." The dram of 
ill transubstantiates the noble, essences it to its own scandal. In 
regard to the uses of " of " and " to," see Abbott's " Shakespearian 
Grammar," rev. and enl. ed., §§ 171 and 186. 

The use of "substance," in the sense of "essence," was, of 
course, sufficiently common, and had been for more than two cen- 
turies, to justify the interpretation given. In Macbeth, i. 5. 48, 
we have "sightless substances " = " invisible essences," "sight- 
less" being used objectively. "Being of one substance with the 
Father." — "Book of Common Prayer." Chaucer, in "The Pro- 
loge of Nonne Prestes Tale" (1. 14,809 of Tynvhitt's edition, 1. 
16,289 of Wright's) uses the word to express the m^;?//^/ charac- 
ter or nature of a man. The Host objects to the Monk's Tale, as 
being too dull for the occasion ; and, that the fault may not be 
thought to lie in himself, says, 

"And wel I wot the substance is in me, 
If eny thing schal wel reported be." 

That is, I am so substanced, so constituted, so tempered, such is 
my cast of spirit, that I can appreciate and enjoy, as well as the 



330 JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 

next man, a good story well told. Whether '' substance " can nt 
found, in this sense, as a verb, matters not. The free functional 
application of words which characterized the Elizabethan English^ 
allowed, as every English scholar knows, of the use of any noun, 
adjective, or neuter verb, as an active verb.* See Abbott's 
" Shakespearian Grammar." 

I. 4. 42. Be thy euents wicked or charitable, F. Be thy in- 
tents C. " events " = issues. The meaning is, not that Hamlet 
attributes any i?itents to the ghost, but that the ghost's appearance 
is to him the prognostic of certain issues or events ; " thy " is the 
personal, and not the possessive adjective, pronoun j in other 
words, it is used objectively. 

I. 4. 63. then will I follow it. F. then I will C. 

I. 4. 78. It wafts me still : F. It waves me still. C. "Whom 
Fortune with her luory hand wafts to her," Timon of Athens, 
I. I. 73. 

I. 4. 80. Hold off your hand. F. hands. C. 

I. 4. 84. Still am I cal'd? F. Still am I call'd : C. The ? 
is better. Am I still called and do I trifle here? unhand me, 
gentlemen ; By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me. 

I. 5. 22. list Hamlet, oh list, F. List, list, O, hst ! C. 

I. 5. 26. Murther? F. Murder! C. 

I. 5. 35 and 59. mine Orchard, F. my orchard, C. 

I. 5. 40. O my Propheticke soule : mine Vncle? F. my uncle ! 
C. The ? better represents the proper elocution. 

I- 5- 75- Of Life, of Crowne, and Queene at once dispatcht; 
F. Of Ufe, of crown, of queen, C. 

I. 5. 80. Oh horrible, Oh horrible, most horrible : F. O, hor- 
rible ! O, horrible ! most horrible ! C. The " Cambridge " editors 
make no distinction between the emotional interjection, " Oh," and 
the " O " vocative, but print both " O." It can be seen, I think, 
that the distinction was intended to be made in the F. : the use 



* This interpretation I communicated, in the main, to '* Notes and Queries," 
some years ago. But I did not then recognize an important element in it that 
the pronoun ** his " is a neuter genitive, standing for " noble " used as a noun. 



JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 33 1 

of " Oh " and " O " is, however, quite irregular there. But in a 
modernized text, consistency requires that the distinction should 
be made, as it is one that is observed in modern orthography. 
It is a distinction, too, not merely factitious, as might be sup- 
posed, but based on good ground. "There is a difference be- 
tween ' O sir ! ' ' O King ! ' and ' Oh ! sir,' ' Oh ! Lord,' both in 
sense and pronunciation. As to the sense, the O prefixed merely 
imparts to the title a vocative effect ; while the Oh conveys 
some particular sentiment, as of appeal, entreaty, expostulation, 
or some other. And as to the sound, the O is enchtic ; * that is 
to say, it has no accent of its own, but is pronounced with the 
word to which it is attached, as if it were its unaccented first syl- 
lable. The term Enclitic signifies ^reclining on,' and so the 
interjection (9 in 'O Lord' recHnes on the support afforded to 
it by the accentual elevation of the word ' Lord.' So that ' O 
Lord ' is pronounced like such a dissyllable as alight, alike, away ; 
in which words the metrical stroke could never fall on the first 
syllable. Oh / on the contrary, is one of the fullest of monosylla- 
bles, and it would be hard to place it in a verse except with the 
stress upon it. The example from Wordsworth illustrates this. 

'■'■ * But she is in her grave, — and oh 
The difference to me ! ' " 
— Earle's '' Philology of the English Tongue," 2d ed. pp. 191-92. 

I. 5. 91. Adue, adue, Hamlet : remember me. F. Adieu, 
adieu, adieu ! remember me. C. The addressing his son by name 
at the conclusion of his speech is more effective from its famiharity, 
than the third repetition of " adieu." 

I. 5. 95 and 97. Remember thee? F. Remember thee ! C. 

I. 5. 114-116. Hor. Heauen secure him. Mar. So be it. 
Hor. Illo, ho, ho, my lord. Hain, Hillo, ho, ho, boy; come 
bird, come. F. 

Hor. Heaven secure him ! Ham. So be it ! Mar. Illo, ho, 
ho, my lord ! Ham. Hillo, ho, ho, boy ! come, bird, come. C. 



* " Proclitic " would be the better word here. 



332 JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 

The disposition of the speeches in the F. is the best. Marcelkis 
seconds Horatio's " Heaven secure him," with his " So be it " ; 
Horatio, then, as Hamlet's bosom friend, uses the falconer's call, 
which would have been too familiar on the part of Marcellus, and 
Hamlet, in his excitement, responds in the same language. 

I. 5. 119. Ha7n. No you'l reueale it. F. No; you will reveal 
it. C. The more off-hand "you'll" is preferable here. 

I. 5. 129. desires F. desire C. 

I. 5. 130. For euery man ha's businesse F. hath C. 

1.5. 135-6. Hor. There's no offence my Lord. Ham. Yes, 
by Saint Patricke, but there is my Lord, F. . . . but there is, 
Horatio, C. The " my Lord " in Hamlet's speech is a retort to 
the '^my Lord" in Horatio's speech, and it has an effect which 
is lost in the C. reading ; " is " should receive a strong accent, 
"my Lord" being uttered enclitically. 

I. 5. 137. And much offence too, touching this Vision heere : 
It is an honest Ghost, that let me tell you : F. And much offence 
too. Touching this vision here. It is an honest ghost, that let me 
tell you: C. 

The punctuation of the C, a period after " too," has no Q. nor 
F. authority, all the editions having a comma after '' too," except 
the 6th Quarto, which has a colon. Horatio, of course, means 
that he intended no offence to Hamlet, in saying '' These are but 
wild and hurling words, my Lord " ; and Hamlet, in his reply, flies 
off, and speaks with reference to the offence or wrong which, he 
has just learned, has been done to his father : " Yes, by Saint 
Fatricke, but there is my Lord, And much offence too, touching 
this Vision heere : " he then adds, " It is an honest Ghost, that 
let me tell you " : but more than that he'll not tell : " For your 
desire to know what is betweene vs, O'remaster't as you may." 

I. 5. 154. Neuer to speake of this that you haue seene. 
Sweare by my sword. F. The C. has a comma after "seen," 
thus subordinating the clause, " Never . . . seen," to " swear by 
my sword." In the first place such an inversion of the construc- 
tion is awkward ; and in the second place, the speech doesn't 
hitch on to the preceding speech so well. Horatio asks Hamlet 



JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 333 

to propose the oath, which he does, namely, " Never to speak of 
this that you have seen," and then, having proposed the oath, he 
tells them to swear by his sword, which is additional. 

1.5. 157-160. " Come hither Gentlemen, And lay your hands 
againe vpon my sword, Neuer to speake of this that you haue 
heard : Sweare by my Sword." F. " Come hither, gentlemen. And 
lay your hands again upon my sword : Never to speak of this that 
you have heard, Swear by my sword." C. Here the C. construes 
again, as in line 154, the clause " Never to speak of this that you 
have heard," with " Swear by my sword." But the true meaning 
is certainly that indicated by the punctuation of the F. : " lay 
your hands again upon my sword, never to speak of this that you 
have heard." The " Swear by my sword " is but a repetition of 
the same idea. 

I. 5. 162. "Well said old Mole, can'st worke i' th' ground so 
fast?" F. "Well said, old Mole! canst work i' the earth so 
fast? " C. " ground " seems preferable with reference to " mole." 

I. 5. 167. "There are more things in Heauen and Earth, 
Horatio, Then are dream't of in our Philosophy " F. your phi- 
losophy. C. Hamlet and Horatio had been fellow-students at the 
University ; this may explain the use of " our." Or it would be 
better, perhaps, to understand Hamlet as using it in the general 
%QnsQ oi human philosophy, which is limited in its scope. Why 
he should say " your," does not appear ; but it may be ethical. 

I. 5. 173. That you at such time seeing me, F. That you, 
at such times seeing me, C. " time " suits the context better, 
and "such time seeing" is less harsh than ^^ such timej- j-eeing." 

I. 5. 174. neuer shall With Armes encombred thus, or thus, 
head shake ; F. never shall, With arms encumber'd thus, or this 
head-shake, C. The Quartos 1-5 have " this head shake." The 
hyphen of the C. is after Theobald ; the 6th Quarto reads " head 
thus shak't." The construction of the C. reading is imperfect, 
" shall " having no verb connected with it ; according to the F., 
" shake " is a verb, having " shall " as its auxiliary : never shall, 
with arms encumbered thus, or thus, (suiting the action to the 
word,) head shake. 



334 JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 

2. I. 70. Good my Lord. F. Good my lord ! C. after Dyce. 
The Quartos and Folios all have a period after "Lord." This 
speech seems to express the simple assent of Reynaldo to what 
Polonius has said. The ! is not required. To the next item of 
Polonius's advice, he replies, " I shall my Lord " ; and to the 
next, "Well, my Lord." 

2. I. 99. helpe; F. helps, C. 

2. 2. 5. so I call it, F. so call it, C. 

2. 2. 10. I cannot deeme of. F. I cannot dream of: C. 

2. 2. 12. so Neighbour'd to his youth, and humour, F. so 
neighbour'd to his youth and haviour, C. More force in the F. 
word " humour " which must be taken in its earlier sense of " tem- 
per of mind," " disposition." 

2. 2. 16. Occasions F. occasion C. 

2. 2. 43. Assure you, my good Liege, F. I assure my good 
liege, C. Feeble. 

2. 2. Ill, 112. but you shall heare these in her excellent white 
bosome, these. F. but you shall hear. Thus : " In her excellent 
white bosom, these, &c." C. It would seem that the first " these " 
in the F. is right, the second being a mere repetition for emphasis ; 
so that all that is wanting in the F. is a colon after "heare." 
"These in her excellent white bosom, these:" The expression 
is evidently directive or optative, and given as an introduction to 
" Doubt thou, the Starres are fire,'' etc. There is a studied odd- 
ness in the letter, as is shown by the subscription, " wliilst this 
Machine is to him, Hamlet." 

2. 2. 151. Do you thinke 'tis this? F. Do you think tliis? C. 
The F. reading suits better what precedes, and the reply of the 
queen that follows, "It may be very likely." 

2. 2. 173. Excellent, excellent well: y'are a Fishmonger. F. 
Excellent well ; you are a fishmonger. C. The repetition of 
"excellent" in the F. seems to express better the impatient, 
don't-trouble-me mood of the speaker. In 5. 2. 173. when the 
obsequious courtier, Osric, whom he despises, takes leave of him, 
there is a repetition of "^/ours" with the same contempiuous 



JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 335 

coloring: ''Osr. I commend my duty to your Lordship. Ham. 
Yours, yours;" [^Exit Osric. Then turning to Horatio,'] "he 
does well to commend it himself, there are no tongues else 
for's turn." 

2. 2. 175. Honest, my Lord? F. Honest, my lord ! C. 

2. 2. 180, 181. Ham. For if the Sun breed Magots in a dead 

dogge, being a good kissing Carrion Haue you a daughter? 

F. Ham. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a 
god kissing carrion — Have you a daughter? C. 

The C. gives the following collation of readings (Qq standing 
for the Quartos but not including the ist Q., 1603, Ff, the Folios) : 

180. Ham.] Ham. [reads]. Staunton. 

181. god kissing carrion] Hanmer (Warburton). good kiss- 
ing carrion Qq Ff. god-kissing carrion Malone conj. good, 
kissing carrion Whiter conj. carrion-kissing god Mitford conj. 
carrion — ~\Y{. carrion. Qq. 

Dyce's note : P. 136 (57) "For if the sun breed maggots in 
a dead dog, being a good kissing carrion,'' 

This passage is not in the quarto 1603. — The other old eds. 

have " bei7ig a good kissing carrion.'' — \ give Warburton's 

emendation, which, if over-praised by Johnson, (who called it a 
"noble " one,) at least has the merit of conveying something Hke 
a meaning. — That not even a tolerable sense can be tortured out 
of the original reading, we have proof positive in the various expla- 
nations of it by Whiter, Coleridge, Caldecott, Mr. Knight, and 
Delius. ("The carrion," says Mr. Knight with the utmost gravity, 
"the carrion is good at kissing — ready to return the kiss of the 
sun— ' Common kissing Titan,' and in the bitterness of his satire 
Hamlet associates the idea with the daughter of Polonius. Mr. 
Whiter, however, considers that good, the original reading, is cor- 
rect ; but that the poet uses the word as a substantive the 

GOOD principle in the fecundity of the earth. In that case we 
should read 'being a good, kissing carrion.'" Equally out- 
rageous in absurdity is the interpretation of Delius, which (trans- 
lated for me by Mr. Robson) runs thus : " Hamlet calls the dog, 



336 JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 

in which the sun breeds maggots, a good, kissing carrion ; allud- 
ing to the confiding, fawning manner of the dog towards his 
master. If the sun breeds maggots in a dead dog, which during 
its lifetime was so attached, — what, says Hamlet, in his bitter 
distrust [Misstrauen], and to annoy Polonius, might not the sun 
breed in the equally tender Opheha, who ought therefore not to 
expose herself to the sun.") — "The Works of William Shake- 
speare. The text revised by the Rev. Alexander Dyce. In nine 
Volumes. Vol. VII. Second edition. London: 1868." p. 223. 

In " The Shakespeare Society's Papers. Vol. II. London : 
printed for the Shakespeare Society. 1845." ^^^' VII. — Con- 
jectures on some of the corrupt or obscure passages of Shake- 
speare. By Barron Field, Esq., pp. 41, 42, the author remarks : 

" And we are indebted to Bishop Warburton, the most arbitrary, 
but the most sagacious of critics, ... for reading in ' Hamlet,' 
' If the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a 6^^^-kissing car- 
rion,' instead of a ' Good,' as the old copies have it : 'a noble 
emendation (Dr. Johnson calls it) which almost sets the critic on 
a level with the author.' " 

In a foot-note he adds (p. 42) : 

" Mr. Collier and Mr. Knight retain ' good,' and understand the 
dead dog to be the good kissing carrion ; but this seems to me 
somewhat too much meaning for the words to be licensed to carry. 
That the sun is the osculist, and not the dog, is confirmed by the 
following passage from i Hen. IV. 2. 4. [113] : 'Didst thou 
never see Titan kiss a dish of butter?' and by the phrase, 'com- 
mon-kissing Titan,' in Cymbeline, 3. 4. [164]." 

One thing can with certainty be assumed at the outset, namely, 
that the Sun, " common-kissing Titan," is the " osculist," to use 
Mr. Field's word, and not the carrion dog ; " and now remains 
that we find out the cause of the effect, or rather say, the cause of 
the defect," in the several attempted explanations of the passage 
in question. That defect is due to one thing, and one thing only, 
and that is, to the understanding of ''kissing" as the present active 
participle, and not as the verbal noun. It is well known to all 



A 



JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 337 

English scholars that, in the early period of our language, there 
were distinct forms for the present active participle and the verbal 
noun, the former ending in Anglo-Saxon in -ende, and the latter in 
-ung, which endings became, respectively, -end {-e?ide), and -i7ig 
{-inge), in Middle English. This distinction between the parti- 
ciple and the verbal noun continued to be quite strictly observed 
until near the end of the 14th century. It is so observed in the 
earlier text of the Wycliffite versions of the Scriptures, and in 
Gower's " Confessio Amantis," the present participle terminating 
almost invariably in -ende, a few cases only occurring of the latter 
form in -inge {-ing). In Chaucer's works, which represent the 
most advanced stage of the language in his time, the present par- 
ticiple terminates, with very rare exceptions, in -ing or -yng {-inge 
or -ynge). Soon after the close of the 14th century, -ing be- 
came the common ending of the participle and the verbal noun. 
But it is often important to determine which is which, in reading 
an author of so contriving a spirit of expression as Shakespeare 
exhibits. 

In the following passages, for example, the present active parti- 
ciple is used : " Life's but a walking shadow," Macbeth, 5. 5. 24 ; 
"Look, here comes a walking fire." King Lear, 3. 4. no; " the 
dancing banners of the French." King John, 2. i. 308; "my 
dancing soul doth celebrate This feast of battle with mine adver- 
sary." Richard II. i. 3. 91; "labouring art can never ransom 
nature From her inaidable estate ; " All's Well that Ends Well, 2. 
I. 116; "more busy than the labouring spider" 2 Henry VI. 3. 
I. 339 : "And let the labouring bark climb hills of seas Olympus- 
high" Othello, 2. I. 184 ; "thy parting soul ! " i Henry VI. 2. 5. 
115 ; "parting guest" Troilus and Cressida, 3. 3. 166 ; "a falling 
fabric." Coriolanus, 3. i. 247; "this breathing world," Richard 
III. I. I. 21 ; " O blessed breeding sun," Timon of Athens, 4. 3. i. 

But in the following passages the same words are verbal nouns 
used adjectively : 

"a palmer's walking- staff," Richard 11. 3. 3. 151 ; "you and I 
are past our dancing- days ; " Romeo and Juhet, i. 5. 29; "you 



33^ JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 

ought not walk Upon a labouring day " Julius Caesar, i. i. 4 ; " ere 
I could Give him that parting kiss " Cymbeline, i. 3. 34 ; " And 
say, what store of parting tears were shed?" Richard II. i. 4. 5 ; 
"he hath the falling sickness." Julius Caesar, i. 2. 252 ; "Cannot 
be quiet scarce a breathing while," Richard III. i. 3. 60; "it is 
the breathing time of day with me ; " Hamlet, 5. 2. 165. 

And now we are all ready for " kissing " : In the following pas- 
sages it is the participle : 

"A kissing traitor." Love's Labour's Lost, 5. 2. 592; "the 
greedy touch Of common-kissing Titan," Cymbehne, 3. 4. 164; 
" O, how ripe in show. Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting 
grow ! " A Midsummer Night's Dream, 3. 2. 140. 

" Kissing," in the last passage, might be taken for the verbal 
noun, meaning, for kissing, or, to be kissed ; but it must here be 
understood as the participle. Demetrius speaks of the lips of 
Helena, as two ripe cherries that kiss, or lightly touch, each other. 
But to say of a pair of beautiful lips that they are good kissing lips, 
would convey quite a different meaning, — a meaning, however, 
which nobody would mistake : " Kissing " in such expression, is 
the verbal noun used adjectively, and equivalent to " for kissing." 
And so the word is used in the passage in question : 

" For if the sun breed Magots in a dead dogge, being a good 
kissing Carrion " — 

That is, a dead dog being, not a carrion good at kissing, as Mr. 
Knight and others understand it, and which would be the sense of 
the word, as a present active participle, but a carrion good for 
kissing, or, to be kissed, by the sun, that thus breeds a plentiful 
crop of maggots therein, the agency of " breed " being implied in 
" kissing." In reading this speech, the emphasis should be upon 
" kissing " and not upon " carrion," the idea of which last word is 
anticipated in " dead dog " ; in other words, " kissing carrion " 
should be read as a compound noun, which in fact it is, the stress 
of sound falling on the member of the compound which bears the 
burden of the meaning. The two words might, indeed, be hy- 
phened, like " Kissing-comfits," in The Merry Wives of Windsor, 5. 
5- 19- 



JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 339 

The fact that all the Quartos and Folios perfectly agree in the 
expression "a good kissing carrion," is quite conclusive evidence 
that it is the correct reading, and that its meaning was plain to 
early readers and hearers. Had it been obscure, so obscure that 
" not even a tolerable sense," to use Dyce's words, could have 
been " tortured out of the original reading," it would no doubt 
have been tinkered into variations before Bishop Warburton made 
" the noble emendation which almost sets the critic on a level 
with the author." ! 

2. 2. 183-185. Conception is a blessing, but not as your 
daughter may conceive. Friend look too't. F. conception is 
a blessing; but as your daughter may conceive, — friend, look 
to't. C. The sentence is complete in the F. and the " not " is 
essential to Hamlet's obvious meaning. He says what he does to 
make the old man uneasy, meaning, that though conception is a 
blessing, in the legitimate way, it wouldn't be as his daughter 
might conceive — out of wedlock. Polcnius, with his fossilized 
prudential wisdom, has had no living organs of discernment to 
perceive Hamlet's sensibility of principle and chastity of honor, 
and has feared that his daughter's relations with the prince " out 
of her star," would result in her shame. Hamlet's penetrating 
sagacity has revealed to him the old man's fears, and he accord- 
ingly plays upon them. 

2. 2. 188. he is farre gone, farre gone : F. he is farre gone : 
C. The repetition in the F. is more effective, and very natural, 
too, for one speaking in Polonius's assured state of mind. There 
is, also, more of the old man in it. 

2. 2. 197. their eyes purging thicke Amber, or Plum-Tree 
Gumme : F. ... thick amber and plum-tree gum, C. 

2. 2. 201. For you your selfe Sir, should be old as I am, if 
like a Crab you could go backward. F. for yourself, sir, shall 
grow old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward. C. It is 
not likely that the poet meant that Hamlet should talk nonsense 
in this passage, but rather that he should express himself in a way 
to puzzle the old man. As it stands in the F. it would seem that 



340 JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 

"old " is used, not as opposed to "young," but as denoting age 
in general. So that the expression really means, " you yourself, 
sir, should be young as I am, if, like a crab, you could go back- 
ward." The sense is further obfuscated by speaking of the purely 
ideal going backward in time under the purely literal image of 
going backward like a crab. 

2. 2. 205. Pol. will you walke Out of the ayre my Lord? 
Ham. Into my grave ? F. Into my grave. C. There can be 
no question of the correctness of the ? in the F. Hamlet's 
speech, paraphrased, would be, "You ask me to walk out of the 
air : would you have me walk into my grave ? " Hamlet's replies 
to those persons of the play whom he dislikes or despises, the 
King, Polonius, and the courtiers, are characterized by their literal- 
ness. When the King asks, "How fares our cousin Hamlet?" 
Hamlet replies, " Excellent, i* faith ; of the chameleon's dish : 
I eat the air, promise-crammed : you cannot feed capons so." 
When he asks Osric, "What's his [Laertes's] weapon?" and Osric 
replies, "Rapier and dagger," Hamlet replies, "That's two of his 
weapons." 

2. 2. 206. Indeed that is out o' th' Ayre : F. Indeed, that's 
out of the air. C. The proper elocution requires that " is " be 
made emphatic, which it cannot be if contracted as in the C. 

2. 2. 217. P0I071. You goe to seeke my Lord Hamlet; there 
he is. F. ... the Lord Hamlet ; C. 

2. 2. 219-222. Guild. Mine honour'd Lord? Ros. My most 
deare Lord? Ham. My excellent good friends? How do'st 
thou Guildensterne ? Oh, Rosmcra?ie ; good Lads : How doe 
ye both ? F. Guil. My honoured lord ! Ros. My most dear 
lord ! Ham. My excellent good friends ! How dost thou, 
Guildenstern ? Ah, Rosencrantz ! Good lads, how do you both ? 
C. The ? of the F. represents the elocution better than the ! of 
the C. It would appear from the F. reading, that Hamlet, when 
addressing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, gives his attention to 
the latter, saying, after the common address, " How dost thou 
Guildenstern?" before recognizing Rosencrantz; the "Oh," in 



JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 34 1 

" Oh Rosincrane " involves a friendly apology. There seems to 
be a certain playfulness in the "How do ye both?" of the F., 
which is not in the " How do you both ? " of the C. 

2. 2. 229. Ham. Then you Hue about her waste, or in the 
middle of her fauour? F. Then you live about her waist, or in 
the middle of her favours? C. There is a word play intended in 
the use of " favour " which is precluded by the plural form of the 
C. ; " favour " is used equivocally in the sense of " face," " counte- 
nance," for which the plural " favours " could not be used, and in 
the sense of '^ propitiousness." 

2. 2. 238. Guil. Prison, my Lord? F. Prison, my lord ! C. 

2. 2. 336. (as it is like most if their meanes are no better) F. 
— as it is most like, if their means are no better, — C. This pas- 
sage does not occur in the Quartos. The change of "like most " 
to "most like" adopted by the C, was made by Pope. But 
" like most " may be what the poet wrote, in the sense of " hke- 
liest," "most" being used as a suffix, as in "foremost," "mid- 
most," "inmost," etc. 

2. 2. 238. there ha's bene much to do on both sides : F. 
there has been much to do on both sides, C. In a modernized 
edition, "to do" should be hyphened, the two words being used 
together as a substantive. " In place of this to-do the King's 
English accepted a composition, part French, part English, and 
hence the substantive ado.^^ — Earle's " Philology of the English 
Tongue," 2d ed. p. 420. But see Skeat's "Etymological Dic- 
tionary," s.v. " ado," where the correct etymology is given of the 
word. 

2. 2. 354. Let me comply with you in the Garbe, F. This 
garb, C. " the " is used in the F. generically, and makes the 
better sense. 

2. 2. 369. for a Monday morning 'twas so indeed. F. o'Mon- 
day morning ; 'twas so, indeed. C. " o' " is after Capell ; the 
Quartos read "a," the ist, 2d, and 3d, Folios, "for a," the 4th, 
" for on." The 2d and 3d Quartos have a comma after " morn- 
ing," the 4th, 5th, and 6th, and the Fohos, have no point. 



342 yOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 

2. 2.376. Vpon mine Honor. F. Upon my honour, — C. 
In the use of the dash, the C. follows Rowe. But the sense is 
apparently complete. All the Quartos and Folios have a period. 

2. 2. 381-3. Seneca cannot be too heauy, nor Plautus too 
light, for the law of Writ, and the Liberty. These are the onely 
men. F. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. 
For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men. C. 
The pointing of the C. is Theobald's. The 2d, 3d, 4th, and 5th, 
Quartos have no point after " light " and a colon after *' liberty " ; 
the Fohos all have a comma after "light" and a period after 
"liberty"; the 6th Quarto and Quarto (1676) have no point 
after " light " and a semicolon after " liberty." All the Quartos 
and Folios, therefore, connect in construction, " for the law of 
writ and the liberty," with Seneca and Plautus, and not with 
" these are the only men," which evidently refers to the actors 
he's talking about. " Liberty " should be construed with " law " : 
the law and the liberty of writ [writing] . And " law " and " liberty " 
seem to refer, respectively, to " heavy " and " light." This respec- 
tive construction is frequent in Shakespeare. See Macbeth, i. 3. 
60, 61 ; Hamlet, 3. i. 151 ; Winter's Tale, 3. 2. 160-162; An- 
tony and Cleopatra, 3. 2. 15-18; 4. 15. 25, 26; Comedy of Errors, 
2. 2. 1 1 2-1 1 7 ; The Tempest, i. 2. 335, 336 ; Midsummer Night's 
Dream, 3. i. 98-101. 

2. 2. 401. For looke where my Abridgements come. F. ... 
my abridgement comes. C. The singular is used in all the 
Quartos, and the plural in all the Folios, and it would seem that 
they were used with a different understanding of their meaning ; 
" my abridgement," they who will cut short my talk, " my " being 
used objectively ; " my Abridgements," they who are, as Hamlet 
calls them further on in the Scene, 11. 501, 502, "the Abstracts 
and breefe Chronicles of the time," " my " being ethical. 

2. 2. 403. O my olde Friend? F. O, my old friend ! C. The 
? is better. The speech should be uttered with an interrogative 
intonation expressive of a pleasant surprise. So 405, 406. What, 
my young Lady and Mistris? F. The C. employs a ! again. 



JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 343 

2. 2. 406. neerer Heauen F. nearer to heaven C. 

2. 2. 424. One cheefe Speech in it, I cheefely lou'd, F. One 
speech in it I chiefly loved : C. 

2. 2. 438. a tyrannous, and damned Hght F. a tyrannous and 
a damned light. C. The repetition of "a" makes two distinct 
lights. 

2. 2. 501. the Abstracts and breefe Chronicles of the time, F. 
the abstract and brief chronicles of the time : C. 

2. 2. 503. while you lined. F. while you live. C. 

2. 2. 506. and who should scape whipping : F. and who 
shall 'scape whipping? C. The conditional "should" is better 
after the postulate "use every man after his desert." 

2. 2. 521. Rosin. Good my Lord. F. Good my lord ! C. 
The period is better. Rosencrantz simply assents to what Hamlet 
has just said, " I'll leave you till night." 

2. 2. 526. whole conceit, F. own conceit C. 

2. 2. 558. I \i.e., Ay] sure, this is most braue, F. This is 
most brave, C. The " I sure " of the F. adds to the irony of the 
expression. 

3. I. 63. That Flesh is heyre too? 'Tis F. That flesh is 
heir to, 'tis C. The punctuation of the F. is preferable. After 
the reflection that death is no more than a sleep, the question 
arises in Hamlet's mind as to whether by a sleep we shall end the 
heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. 
On which he reflects, " 'Tis a consummation Devoutly to be 
wish'd." 

3. I. 71. the poore mans Contumely, F. the proud man's 
contumely, C. The Quartos all read "proud," the Folios, "poor." 
In the two expressions, the genitive is differently used : in the first, 
it is objective, "the poor man's contumely," meaning the con- 
tumely or contemptuous treatment the poor man suffers ; in the 
second, it is subjective, "the proud man's contumely" meaning 
the contumely or contemptuous treatment the proud man exer- 
cises. 

3. I. 72. The pangs of dispriz'd Loue, the F. The pangs of de- 



344 JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 

spised love, the C. " dispriz'd " is the reading of the Fohos ; 2d and 
3d Quartos, "despiz'd" ; 4th and 5th Quartos, "office, and the" ; 
"mispriz'd" ColHer MS. (erased). It would be hard to decide 
as to the relative force of the two words " dispriz'd " and " de- 
spised." But, perhaps, a disprized or undervalued love, a love 
that is only partially appreciated and responded to, would be apt 
to suffer more pangs than a despised love. 

3. I. 76. Who would these Fardles beare F. who would far- 
dels bear, C. "these Fardles" is the reading of all the Folios; 
according to the C. reading, which is that of the Quartos, "far- 
dels " means something additional to what Hamlet has enumerated 
in the six preceding lines, " the whips and scorns of time," " the 
oppressor's wrong," " the poor man's contumely," etc. ; but ac- 
cording to the F. reading, " fardels " represents all these. It 
would seem that, having said, 11. 70 et seq.^ " who would bear," 
(the several things he specifies,) he repeats "who would bear," 
with the general object, " fardels," (representing all the special 
ones,) for the purpose of introducing the exceptive clause, " But 
that the dread of something after death, . . . puzzles the will," 
etc. Besides, the general term " fardels " when not identified in 
meaning, by the use of " these," with the preceding specifications, 
comes in somewhat flat. The F. reading seems altogether the 
best. 

3. I. Zd. And enterprizes of great pith and moment, F. ... 
of great pitch and moment C. Independently of the authority 
for "pith," namely, all the Folios and the players' Quartos of 1676, 
1683, 1695, 1 703? "pitch" and "moment" haven't the congruity 
that "pith" and "moment" have, more especially, too, if "mo- 
ment " be understood as retaining some of its original force of 
"momentum." The greater congruity of "pith" and " moment" 
than of " pitch " and " moment " will be seen by Shakespeare's 
uses of these words in the following passages : " that's my pith of 
business 'Twixt you and your poor brother." Meas. for Meas. i. 
4. 70 ; " Perhaps you mark'd not what's the pith of all." T. of 
the S. I. I. i6i ; "grandsires, babies, and old women. Either past 



JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 345 

or not arrived to pith and puissance ; " Hen. V. 3. i. Chorus, 21 ; 
*'The pith and marrow of our attribute." Ham. i. 4. 22 ; "For 
since these arms of mine had seven years' pith," Othel. i. 3. 83; 
"pithy and effectual," T. of the S. i. i. 66; "An oath is of no 
moment, being not took Before a true and lawful magistrate," 3 
Hen. VI. I. 2. 22 ; "I have seen her die twenty times upon far 
poorer moment :" A. and C. i. 2. 137. And does not "pith" 
suit the idea of "currents" better, in the next hne? The editors 
of the C. remark. Note XVI., " In this doubtful passage we have 
retained the reading of the Quartos, although the players' Quartos 
of 1676, 1683, 1695, 1703' ^^v^' contrary to their custom, fol- 
lowed the Folios, which may possibly indicate that ' pith ' was the 
reading according to the stage tradition." 

3. I. 87. their Currants tume away, F. their currents turn 
awry C. "turn away" expresses more of an entire change of 
current, which is Hamlet's idea, than does " turn awry." 

3. I. 89. The faire Ophelia ? F. The fair Ophelia ! C. 

3. I. 94. I pray you now, receiue them. F. I pray you, now 
receive them. C. Having longed long to re-deliver his remem- 
brances, she, now that the opportunity is afforded, prays him to 
receive them. The pointing of the F. is the more correct. Even 
the very different reading of the First Quarto indicates the bearing 
of " now " : " My Lord, I haue sought opportunitie, which 7ioiv I 
haue, to redeliuer to your worthy handes, a small remembrance." 

3. I. 97. I know right well you did F. you know right well 
you did ; C. The F. reading is the more significant. Ophelia's 
meaning is, the remembrances you gave me, may have been trifles 
to you, such trifles as left no impression on your mind of your 
having given them ; but / know right well you did, as they were 
most dear to me at the time, accompanied as they were with 
expressions of affection. " I " should be read with a strong up- 
ward circumflex. 

3. I. 158. Like sweet Bels iangled out of tune, and harsh, F. 
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh ; C. All the 
Quartos and Folios agree in having a comma after " tune " (Qq 



346 JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 

time) ; the pointing of the C. is Capell's. The phrase " out of 
tune" is certainly an adverbial element to "jangled" and not an 
adjective element to " sweet bells." The two ideas attached to 
"bells" are i. "jangled out of tune"; 2. "harsh," which ex- 
presses to what extent "jangled out of tune." 

3. I. 178. How now Ophelia? F. How now, Ophelia ! C. 

3. I. 183. To shew his Greefes : F. To show his grief: C. 
" Greefes " is used here in the sense of grievances. So further on 
in the play, 3. 2. 323, "if you deny your greefes to your Friend." 

3. 2. 8. to see a robustious Pery-wig-pated Fellow, teare a 
Passion to tatters, F. to hear . . . C. The tearing of a passion 
to tatters by a robustious periwig-pated fellow, is more addressed 
to the eye than to the ear. His robustiousness and his periwig- 
patedness are seen alone, as are also the distortions through which 
he endeavors to exhibit the passion ; it is only what he says that 
is addressed to the ear. 

3. 2. 12. I could haue such a Fellow whipt Y. I would 
. . . C. 

3. 2. 51. O my deere Lord. F. O, my dear lord, — C. The 
Quartos and Folios all agree in having a period after "Lord." 
The dash of the C., indicating an interrupted speech, is after 
Rowe. The context shows that no interruption is intended. 
Horatio must be supposed to say " O my dear Lord " in a way 
expressive of a feeling of being flattered by what Hamlet has just 
said, " Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man As e'er my conversa- 
tion coped withal," uttering " O " and " Lord " with a downward 
circumflex, and Hamlet replies, " Nay, do not think I flatter : " 
etc. 

3. 2. 59, 60. Since my deere Soule was Mistris of my choyse. 
And could of men distinguish, her election Hath seal'd thee for 
her selfe. F. The C. follows the pointing of the F. in having a 
comma after " distinguish." The Quartos read, " distinguish her 
election, S'hath" (Shath Quartos 4th and 5th, Sh'ath Quarto 6th) ; 
" distinguish her election " is decidedly Shakespearian, and may 
be what the poet wrote. The use of a cognate accusative is a 



JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 347 

marked feature of Shakespeare's diction, "of men," too, joins 
better to "election" than to "distinguish." The C. reads "her 
choice," after the Quartos. 

3. 2. 60-63. For thou hast bene As one in suffering all, that 
suffers nothing. A man that Fortunes buffets, and Rewards Hath 
'tane with equall Thankes. F. ... Hast ta'en with equal thanks : 
C. The C. follows the Quartos here in spite of the solecism in 
the use of "Hast." Though the subject-nominative "thou" is 2d 
person, the predicate-nominative " man " is 3d person, and being 
the antecedent of the relative "that," determines the person of 
the verb to which " that " is the nominative or subject. 

3. 2. 72. the Circumstance Which I haue told thee, of my 
Father's death. F. The C, following the Quartos, omits the 
comma after " thee " ; it serves to show that the phrase " of my 
father's death" is connected with "circumstance" and not with 
"told," and, in neat pointing, should not be omitted. 

3- 2. 73-75- I prythee, when thou see'st that Acte a-foot, Euen 
with the verie Comment of my Soule Obserue mine Vnkle : F. 
. . . comment of thy soul Observe my uncle : C. after the Quartos. 
The F. reading is the more expressive : Hamlet's meaning is, I 
would have thee so enter into my feelings, so identify thyself with 
me that, when thou seest that act a-foot, even with the very com- 
ment of my soul, thou wilt observe my uncle. The use of " my " 
also gives force to " Even with the very," which has less force in 
the other reading. 

3. 2. 79, 80. Giue him needfull note. For I mine eyes v/ill 
riuet to his Face : F. " For " depends, for its force, on what 
Hamlet says in the 74th and 75th lines, "Even with the very com- 
ment of my soul Observe mine Uncle : " then having again en- 
joined Horatio to "Give him needful note," or as the Quartos 
have it, which the C. follows, "heedful note," he adds, "For I 
mine eyes will rivet to his face : " 

3. 2. 81, 82. And after we vWU both our iudgments ioyne. To 
censure of his seeming. F. ... In censure of his seeming. C. 
after the Quartos. In the F. reading, "censure" is a noun, as it 



348 JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 

is in the C. For the force of ''To/' see Abbott's Shakespearian 
Grammar, rev. and enl. ed. § i86. 

3. 2. 92-96. Ham. . . . you plaid once i* th' Vniuersity, you 
say? Polon, That I did my Lord, and was accounted a good 
Actor. Ha7n. And what did you enact ? F. What did you enact ? 
C. after the Quartos. The F. reading has a touch of the con- 
temptuous imparted to it by the initial word " And : " " What, I 
pray, or forsooth, ^\A yoit enact?" 

3. 2. 194, 195. The great man downe, you marke his fauourites 
flies. The poore aduanc'd, makes Friends of Enemies : F. ... 
you mark his favourite flies; C. The plural "favourites" suits 
the context better ; it is, in fact, demanded ; and in regard to 
"flies," see Abbott's "Shakespearian Grammar," § 333, where this 
passage is quoted. 

3. 2. 220. Qu. The Lady protests to much me thinkes. F. 
The lady doth protest too much, methinks. C. The more familiar 
"protests " is better here than " doth protest." 

3. 2. 240. Ophe. Still better and worse. Ham. So you mis- 
take Husbands. F. So you must take your husbands. C. So you 
must take your husband, ist Quarto ; the other Quartos, mistake 
your husbands. The other Folios Hke the ist. There is a quibble 
evidently intended : so you mistake, or take amiss, husbaiids, i.e., 
for better and worse. 

3. 2. 250. writ in choyce Italian. F. This may be a case of 
absorption : the -eji of the participle being present in "in." But 
it's not necessary to understand it so. The C. reads, after the 
Quartos, "written in very choice Itahan : " 

3. 2. 251. Murtherer F. This form of the word it would be 
well to retain ; " murther," noun and verb, and " murtherer " were 
the usual forms of the English of the time. 

3. 2. 262. So runnes the world away. F. Thus runs the world 
away. C. after the Quartos. The more general and indefinite 
"So" seems preferable here to the formal "Thus." 

3. 2. 292. Your wisdome should shew it selfe more richer, to 
signifie this to his Doctor : F. the doctor ; C, 



JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 349 

3. 2. 301-303. If it shall please you to make me a wholsome 
answer, I will doe your Mothers command'ment : if not, your par- 
don, and my returne shall bee the end of my Businesse. F ... 
if not, your pardon and my return shall be the end of my business. 
C. Do the editors of the C, by omitting the comma after "par- 
don," mean to construe it with "return"? That would certainly 
not give Rosencrantz' meaning, which the F. shows to' be, "if 
you cannot give me a wholesome answer, pardon me for having 
troubled you, and my return shall be the end of my business." 

3. 2. 322, 323. You do freely barre the doore of your owne 
Libertie, if you deny your greefs to your Friend. F. you do 
surely bar the door upon . . . C. "freely" = "of your own free 
will," perhaps as much as "wilfully." 

3. 2. 329. to withdraw with you, why do you go about to re- 
couer the winde of mee, as if you would driue me into a toyle ? F. 
To withdraw with you: — C. the rest like F. ; the Quartos all 
have a comma after "you," except the 6th, which has a semicolon. 
Taking the F. reading as it stands, it appears that Hamlet, after 
receiving the recorder from the attendant, steps aside, and as he 
does so, says to Guildenstern, "To withdraw with you," as an inti- 
mation of his wish to speak to him apart, and then continues, 
" why do you go about " etc. A similar example of this absolute 
use of the infinitive occurs, 4th Scene of this Act, 1. 216 : " Come, 
sir, to draw toward an end with you." 

3. 2. 341. Ham. 'Tis as easie as lying: F. It is as easy as 
lying: C. 

3. 2. 343. it will discourse most excellent Musicke. F. most 
eloquent music. C. after the Quartos. I feel a certain serious- 
ness — that's hardly the word — about " eloquent," not in keep- 
ing; whereas, in the use of "excellent," there seems to be 
impHed the idea, that the music that can be got out of the Httle 
instrument, is superior to what one would suspect. The word 
" excellent " should be pronounced with a downward circumflex 
on " ex-," imparting a patronizing tone. 

3. 2. 347, 348. Why looke you now, how vnworthy a thing you 



350 JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET, 

make of me : F. ... you make of me ! C. The colon is used 
in the F. as it quite uniformly is, before a specification when for- 
mally introduced. The sentence is not exclamatory. Hamlet 
simply invites Guildenstern's attention to what he is about to state. 
The use of '' now " seems also to indicate this. 

3. 2. 352. There is much Musicke, excellent Voice, in this 
little organe, yet cannot you make it. F. ... yet cannot you 
make it speak. C. The C. reads better, but the F. is not imper- 
fect without " speak : " " it " stands for " music " or " voice." 

3- 2. 354, 355. though you can fret me, you cannot play vpon 
me. F. ... yet you cannot play upon me. C. after the First 
Quarto ; all the others, and the Folios, omit " yet." The use of 
"yet" as the correlative of " though," adds to the formalness, and 
takes away from the plain decisiveness, of the speech. 

3. 2. 359, 360. Do you see that Clowd? that's almost in shape 
like a Camell. F. Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape 
of a camel? C. 

3. 2. 361. By th' Misse, and it's like a Camell indeed. F. 
By the mass, and 'tis hke a camel, indeed. C. " Misse " may 
have been a form of " Mass " in use, or an abbreviation of " Mis- 
sal " ; Lat missa. 

3. 2. 381, 382. How in my words someuer she be shent. To 
giue them Scales, neuer my Soule consent. F. soever C. never, 
my soul, consent ! C. The absence of the commas in all the 
Quartos and Folios, is correct, " consent " being, not an impera- 
tive, but a subjunctive, and "soul," a nominative, not a vocative. 
See Abbott's "Shakespearian Grammar," §§ 364, 365. The point- 
ing of the C. is after Capell. 

3- 3- 5""7- The termes of our estate, may not endure Hazard 
so dangerous as doth hourely grow Out of his Lunacies. F. i.e., 
Hazard as doth hourly grow so dangerous. The C. reads. Hazard 
so near us etc. 

3. 3. 14. That spirit vpon whose spirit depends and rests The 
Hues of many, F. That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests 
The lives of many. C. after Quartos. Though the repetition of 



JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 351 

*' spirit " in the F. is somewhat awkward, there seems to have 
been a reason for departing from the reading of the Quartos. In 
the 3d Hne below, majesty is spoken of as a massy wheel, Fixt on 
the summit of the highest mount, etc. The clashing of the words 
" weal " and " wheel " may have led to the change. 

3. 3. 77. I his foule Sonne, F. I, his sole son, C. after Quartos. 

3. 3. 81. With all his Crimes broad blowne, as fresh as May, 
F. The metaphor involved is that of fresh, full-blown flowers in 
Spring ; as flush as May ; C. after Quartos ; " flush " is, perhaps, 
the more forcible term. 

3. 3. 91. At gaming, swearing, F. At game, a-swearing, C. 

3. 4. 4. He silence me e'ene heere : F. I'll sconce me even 
here. C. "sconce " has no authority, while "silence," which makes 
excellent sense, is the reading of all the Quartos and Folios. The 
editors of the C. say, note XX. : " We have adopted Hanmer's 
correction ' sconce ' for ' silence ' because in the corresponding 
passage of the First Quarto Polonius says : Tie shrowde my selfe 
behinde the Arras.' " That really seems to be reaching very far 
after a reason for the adoption of "sconce," in opposition to all 
the authorities. 

3. 4. 13. Why how now Hamlet? Why, how now, Ham- 
let ! C. 

3. 4. 29. Ham. . . . almost as bad good Mother, As kill a 
King, and marrie with his Brother. Qu. As kill a King? The 
Queen's speech should be uttered with a strong inquiring surprise. 
The C. has an ! 

3. 4. 38. That it is proofe and bulwarke against sense. F. That 
it be C. The indicative " is " is more correct here than the sub- 
junctive "be." 

3. 4. 55. See what a grace was seated on his Brow, F. this 
brow; C. 

3. 4. 95. mine ears. F. my ears; C. 

3. 4. 104. What would you gracious figure? F. What would 
your gracious figure? C. after Quartos. With a comma after 
" you," making " figure " vocative, the F. is the better reading. 



352 JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 

Knight has adopted it, so pointed. " figure " doesn't make, logi- 
cally, a very good subject to " would." 

3. 4. 139. Extasie? F. Ecstasy ! C. 

3. 4. 145. Lay not a flattering Vnction to your soule, That, F. 
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul. That C. 

3. 4. 152. And do not spred the Compost or the Weedes, 
F. ... on the weeds, C. The "or" of the F. may be for "ore" 
or " o'er." Knight has " o'er." 

3. 4. 159. mine Vnkles bed, F. my uncle's bed ; C. 

4. I. I, 2. There's matters in these sighes. These profound 
heaues You must translate ; F. There's matter in these sighs, 
these profound heaves : You must translate : C. The better 
pointing of the Folio here is unquestionable. According to the 
pointing of the C, "heaves" is construed with "sighs" and 
"You must translate " stands detached in construction. Further- 
more, the King uses " profound " equivocally, as it may mean, 
"deep," literally, and "deep" in significance ; and upon the latter 
meaning, "translate" bears. The king then adds, "'tis fit we 
understand them," This is lost in the C. pointing. 

4. I. 4. Bestow this place on us a little while. 

[^Jf^««/ ROSENCRANTZ d!«^ GUILDENSTERN. C. 

This line and the stage direction are not in the F. and it was, 
perhaps, found best, in the representation, not to have Rosen- 
crantz and Guildenstem enter until they were wanted. According 
to the Quartos, they enter with the King and Queen, only to be 
immediately dismissed. In the F. they are made to enter at the 
3 2d line of the Scene, where the King calls them in and gives them 
orders about Hamlet and they then go out. 

4. I. II. And in his brainish apprehension killes The vnseene 
good old man. F. And in this . . . C. The idea of " brainish ap- 
prehension " has not been anticipated, so that " his " is preferable 
to " this " of the Qq. 

4. I. 19-23. But so much was our loue, We would not vnder- 
stand what was most fit, But like the Owner of a foule disease. To 
keepe it from divulging, let's it feede Euen on the pith of life. F. 



JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 353 

. . . But, like the owner of a foul disease, To keep it from divulg- 
ing, let it feed Even on the pith of life. C. " let" after the Quar- 
tos; the ist, 3d, and 4th, Folios read "let's," the 2d reads, "lets." 
In the reading both of the Quartos and of the Folios, the com- 
parison is somewhat mixed with the leading thought. In the F. 
reading, " it " in " To keep // from divulging," and in " lets // 
feed Even on the pith of Hfe," properly refers to " foul disease " ; 
but in the C. reading, it would seem to refer, rather incongruously^ 
to " love." The meaning, however, is perfectly plain, to which 
the reading of the F. comes nearest: "We would not understand 
what was most fit, but [were] like the owner of a foul disease, 
[that,] to keep it from divulging, lets it feed even on the pith of 
life." The application of the comparison is left mental. 

4. 2. 12, 13. Besides, to be demanded of a Spundge,what rep- 
lication should be made by the Sonne of a King F. Besides, to 
be demanded of a sponge ! what replication should be made' by 
the son of a king? C. The ! of the C. is after Steevens, who added 
also a dash. The Quartos and Folios have all a comma after 
" sponge," which is, no doubt, right. The sentence is not meant 
to be exclamatory, as the pointing of the C. makes it ; " to be 
demanded of"="in being demanded by." The modern Eng- 
lish of the whole sentence would be, " in being demanded by a 
sponge, what reply should be made by the son of a king?" In 
regard to the force of "to" before, and of "of" after, "be de- 
manded," see §§ 356 and 170, respectively, of Abbott's "Shake- 
spearian Grammar," rev. and enl. ed. pp. 256 and 112. 
4. 3- 19- At Supper? F. At Supper ! C. 
4. 3. 44. Th' Associates tend, and euery thing at bent For Eng- 
land. F. and everything is bent For England. C. "at bent" is 
the more forcible, expressing, as it does, the suspended readiness 
indicated by what precedes, " the bark is ready," " the wind at 
help," " th' associates tend." 

Scene v. Ehinore. A room in the castle. Enter Queen, 
Horatio, and a Gentleman. C. the numbering of the Scene, after 
Pope, the Scene, after Capell, the Enter after Pope. The F., 



354 JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 

without any designation of Scene, has the stage- direction, Enter 
Queene and Hoi-atio. The 2d and 4th speeches of the Scene, in 
reply to the ist and 3d, which are spoken by the Queen, are 
given by the C, after the Quartos, to the Gentleman. It would 
appear that the Gentleman was afterwards dispensed with as a 
superfluity, and his speeches given to Horatio. Lines 14-16, 
which are given in the Quartos to Horatio, are, in the F., given, 
more appropriately, to the Queen, along with the four following 
lines which are no doubt meant as an Aside, and are so designated 
by the C. The C. gives 11. 14 and 15, " 'Twere good she were 
spoken with, for she may strew Dangerous conjectures in ill-breed- 
ing minds," to Horatio, and begins the Queen's speech with "Let 
her come in." The whole speech, as it stands in the F., is as 
follows : 

" Qu. 'Twere good she were spoken with, 

For she may strew dangerous conjectures 

In ill breeding minds. Let her come in. 

To my sicke soule (as sinnes true Nature is) 

Each toy seemes Prologue, to some great amisse, 

So full of Artlesse iealousie is guilt, 

It spill's it selfe, in fearing to be spilt." 

It would be better to regard the whole speech as an Aside, 
except " Let her come in." 

4.5.112,113. Qu. Calmely good Z^^T/ifj-. Laer. That drop 
of blood, that calmes Proclaimes me Bastard : F. That drop of 
blood that's calm C. after Quartos. The F. reading is the better. 
Laertes is under the wildest excitement, with not a calm drop of 
blood in his veins, and when the Queen entreats, " Calmly, good 
Laertes," be, or become, calm, he rephes, "That drop of blood 
that calms," that is, that grows calm, or, will calm, " proclaims 
me bastard ; " " calms " and " proclaims " are both future in force. 

4. 5. 124. Laei-. Where's my Father? F. Where is my 
father? C. 

4. 5. 146. And am most sensible in greefe for it, F. sensibly C. 

4. 5. 150. Oh heate drie vp my brains, F. C. puts a (,) after 



JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET, 355 

"heat," converting it into a vocative, and "drie " into an impera- 
tive. And " Oh " is the emotional form. 

4. 5. 152. By Heauen, thy madnesse shall be paid by waight, 
F. with weight, C. 

4. 5. 160-162. Ophe. They bore him bare fac'd on the Beer, 
Hey 7ion nony, nony, hey nony : And on his graue raines tnany a 
teare, F. And in his grave rain'd many a tear, — C. The F. 
reading is more significant : They bore him barefaced on the bier, 
and many a tear [now] rains on his grave. According to the C. 
reading, " rain'd " is used transitively, the subject being "They," 
and the reference is to the shedding of tears at the burial. 

4. 5. 196. Do you see this, you Gods? F. . . . O God? C. 

4. 5. 197. King. Laertes y I must common with your greefe, 
F. commune C. 

4. 7. 38. From Hamlet? F. From Hamlet ! C. 

4- 7- 153-155- therefore this Project should haue a backe or 
second, that might hold. If this should blast in proofe : F. did 
blast C. 

4. 7. 185. Laer. Alas then, is she drown'd ? Queen. Drown'd, 
drown'd. F. Alas, then she is drown'd ! Queen. Drown'd, 
drown'd. C. It would appear from the Queen's reply, that Laertes's 
speech must have been meant to be interrogative. If exclamatory, 
as the C. makes it, after Pope, " Alas, then she is drown'd ! " the 
iteration thereupon of the Queen, " Drown'd, drown'd," is almost 
ludicrous, and makes one feel that the poor girl has had indeed, 
as Laertes says in the next speech, " too much of water." 

5. I. 76. It might be the Pate of a PoHtitian which this Asse 
o'er Offices : F. The old lout of a grave-digger, in the discharge 
of his office, lords it over the once scheming pate of the state- 
official who felt himself able, in the exercise of his state-craft, to 
circumvent God himself. 

which this ass now o'er-reaches ; C. *'o'er-reaches " is used with 
a literal reference to the grave-digger, and a metaphorical reference 
to the circumventing poHtician. "Office" is used as a verb in 
Coriolanus, 5. 2. 59: "you shall perceive that a Jack guardant 



35^ JOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 

cannot office me from my son Coriolanus ; " and in All's Well that 
Ends Well, 3. 2. 124 : " although The air of paradise did fan the 
house, and Angels officed all : " Knight adopts the reading of the 
F., "oer-offices;" and it is, without doubt, the more expressive 
term of the two. 

5. I. 77. one that could circumuent God, F. one that would 
C. " could " is better, referring to the pohtician's craftiness in 
getting the better of others. 

5. I. 93. why might not that bee the Scull of a Lawyer? F. 
Why may C. 

5. I. 140. hee that was mad, and sent into England. F. he 
that is mad, C. "was" suits better what follows: '' Ha7n, Ay, 
marry, why was he sent into England? Clo. Why, because he 
was mad ; " 

5. I. 169, 170. This same Scull Sir, this same Scull sir, was 
Yoricks Scull, F. The C, after the Quartos, gives the expression 
but once. The repetition in the F., serves to exhibit the grave- 
digger's sense of his official importance as he turns the skull over 
in his hands. 

5. I. 201. Imperiall Ccesar, F. Imperious Caesar, C. 

5.1. 206, 207. Who is that they follow. And with such maimed 
rites? This doth betoken F. who is this they follow? And with 
such maimed rites? This doth betoken C. "that" is, per se, 
better than "this," Hamlet and Horatio being supposed to be at 
some distance from the procession ; and then " this " occurring in 
next line, referring to " maimed rites," adds to the preferableness 
of the F. reading. 

5. I. 209. Fore do it owne hfe ; F. its own Hfe ; C. "it" 
should be retained for its historical significance. All the Quartos 
and the 2d Foho have " it " ; the 6th Quarto has " its " and the 
3d and 4th Folios have "it's," this neuter gentive form, which 
had been for some time struggling for admission into the written 
language, having, at the dates of their publication, begun to be in 
general use. But Shakespeare must have used the tentative form 
"it." 



yOTTINGS ON THE TEXT OF HAMLET. 357 

5. I. 230. What, the faire Ophelia? F. What, the fair 
Ophelia ! C. 

5. I. 234. I thought thy Bride-bed to haue deckt (sweet Maid) 
x\nd not t'haue strew'd thy Graue. F. And not have C. 

5. 2. 224. Who does it then? His Madness? Ift be so, 
Hamlet is of the Faction that is wrong'd, F. Who does it then ? 
His madness : C. 

5. 2. 284. Come for the third. Laertes, you but dally, F. 
Come, for the third, Laertes : you but dally ; C. 

The 2d Scene of the 5th Act, is less correctly printed in the F. 
than any other portion of the play. 



358 MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 

(Chiefly in support of First Folio Readings.) 

The Spelling of the Poet's Name. 

IT is desirable that a name used as frequently as is that of 
Shakespeare, at the present day, should be uniformly spelt. The 
three forms now most in use, or, it may be said, exclusively in use, 
are Shakespeare, Shakspeare, and Shakspere. The tendency seems 
to be, to settle upon the first of these, though the New Shak- 
spere Society, of London, has adopted the last. The authority 
of the original editions is decidedly in favor of the first. 

There were i6 undoubted plays printed in quarto, some of 
them more than once, during the poet's lifetime, the date of the 
first, Romeo and Juliet, being 1597, and that of the last, Pericles, 
being 1609. The tragedy of Othello was printed in quarto, in 
1622, six years after the poet's death, and the year preceding the 
publication of the First Folio. Of these 17 quarto editions of 
separate plays, some were printed with, and some without, the 
author's name. But on all the title-pages where it appears, it is 
spelt, with but two exceptions, Shakespeare (the two parts of the 
name being sometimes hyphened and sometimes not). The ex- 
ceptions are, Shakespere, on the title-page of the first edition of 
Love's Labor's Lost, 1598, and Shak-speare, on that of the first 
edition of King Lear, 1608. In the first edition of the Sonnets, 
to which "A Louers complaint. By William Shake-speare.", is 
appended, the name occurs three times, being spelt each time 
Shake-speare. The name as attached, in the first editions, to the 
two dedicatory letters to the Earl of Southampton, prefixed to the 



\ 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 



359 



Venus and Adonis, and The Rape of Lucrece, (1593 and 1594,) 
the only letters of the author known to exist, is spelt Shakespeare. 
These are, probably, the only two of his works which the author 
himself saw through the press. They are printed with remarkable 
accuracy. The author's name doesn't appear on the title-pages. 
In 1616, the year of the author's death, The Rape of Lucrece was 
reissued, with his name, spelt Shakespeare; again, in 1624, with 
the same spelling of the name. The Passionate Pilgrim was first 
printed in 1599, the name of the author being given on the title- 
page, as W. Shakespeare. An edition of the Poems was issued in 
1640, with " Written by Wil. Shake-speare. Gent." on the title-page. 
In "The Workes of Beniamin Jonson," published in folio, 1616, 
the name appears in the list of " the principall Comcedians " who 
acted in " Euery Man in his Humour" (p. 72), and in the list of 
"the principall Tragoedians," who acted in " Seianvs his Fall" 
(p. 438). In the first, the name is given, "Will. Shakespeare," 
and in the second, " Will. Shake-Speare." 

The first edition of the collected Plays, known as the First 
Folio, was pubhshed in 1623. The editors were John Heminge 
and Henry Condell, who had been associated professionally with 
Shakespeare for twenty years or more. In this first edition, the 
name of Shakespeare appears, altogether, 19 times : once, in Ben 
Jonson's lines "To the Reader," once, on the title-page, twice in 
"The Epistle Dedicatorie," 13 times in the Verses to his Memory, 
by Ben Jonson, Hugh Holland, L. Digges, and I. M., once in the 
title repeated over the List of Names of the principal Actors, and 
once in the List, and it is invariably spelt Shakespeare. 

As to the spelling adopted by the New Shakspere Society, 
Dr. Fumivall remarks (Prospectus, p. 5, note i) : "This spelling 
... is taken from the only unquestionably genuine signatures of his 
that we possess — the three in his will, and the two in his Stratford 
conveyance and mortgage. None of these signatures have an e 
after the k, four have no a after the first e; the fifth I read eere.'' 

In Ingleby's "Shakespeare's Centurie of Prayse," which con- 
tains, exclusive of documentary notices, all the known allusions to 



360 MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 

Shakespeare, in the original spelHngs, from 1592, when he was 28 
years of age, to 1693, that is, 77 years after his death, the name is 
spelt Shakespeare, 153 times; Shakespear, 96 times; Shakspeare, 
9 times ; Shakspear, 3 times ; Shakespeere, twice ; Shackspeer, 
twice ; Shakspeer, once ; Shack-Spear, once ; Shakspere, once ; 
Shacksperus (in a Latin Tractatulus), twice; and Shakesphear 
(evidently advisedly, quasi Shake-sphere), twice. The form 
Shakespeare is, therefore, considerably in the majority over all the 
other forms, and is used, too, by the best writers. And this form 
is chiefly used in the more important modern editions, — English, 
German, and American, — of the poet's works, and in Shakespearian 
literature generally. And so it would seem best to conform to that 
spelling of the poet's name which has the greater weight of au- 
thority on its side. 

" Bayted like Eagles." 

*'A11 furnisht, all in Armes, 
All plum'd like Estridges, that with the Winde 
Bayted like Eagles, hauing lately bath'd. 
Glittering in Golden Coates, like Images, 
As full of spirit as the Moneth of May, 
And gorgeous as the Sunne at Mid-summer, 
Wanton as youthfull Goates, wilde as young Bulls. 
I saw young Harry with his Beuer on, 
His Cushes on his thighes, gallantly arm'd, 
Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury^ 
And vaulted with such ease into his Seat, 
As if an Angell dropt downe from the Clouds, 
To turne and winde a fierie Pegasus, 
And witch the World with Noble Horsemanship." 

— I Henry IV. 4. i. 97-110. 

1. 98, that with~\ that wing Rowe. a?id with Hanmer. that 
whisk Tyrwhitt conj. wind~\ wind a^r fan?i' d Y,.e\ght\ey conj. 

98, 99. plumed . . . Winde Bayted'] plunt'd ! . . . wi7id Bated: 
Johnson conj. 

99 Baited] Qi Q2 Q3 Q4 F3 F4. Bayted (^c^ Q6 Fi Q7 Q8 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 36 1 

F2. Baiting Hanmer. Bated Malone. — Var. Lect., as given in 
"Cambridge " ed. 

" All plum'd like estridges that wing the wind; 
Bated like eagles having lately bath'd ; " — Third Variorum text. 

The " Cambridge " editors, in their note, say, '' We leave this 
obscure passage as it stands in the old copies. Possibly, as 
Steevens suggested, a line has dropped out after wind. The 
phrase ' wing the wind ' seems to apply to ostriches (for such is 
unquestionably the meaning of ' estridges ') less than to any other 
birds " 

Malone, agreeing with Steevens that a line might have been 
lost, suggested the following : 

" All plum'd like estridges, that with the wind 
Run on, in gallant trim they now advance : 
Bated like eagles, etc." 

The whole difficulty which the passage presents, as the many 
notes written on it, show, centres in " Bayted." To bait or bate 
means, as Dr. Schmidt defines it, " to flap the wings, to flutter (a 
term in falconry) : " Fr. battre, Lat. batuere. 

If " Bayted " is understood as a past participle, the relative 
" that " is left without a verb ; if it is understood as a verb, the 
tense presents a difficulty — it should properly be present tense. 

As all the original editions agree in the word, from the ist 
Quarto to the 4th Foho, inclusive, the only difference being, as 
noted above, in the two spellings, " baited " and " bayted," I feel 
quite certain that the word was originally written as the ear took 
it in, and that it represents "bait it," the "it " being used, as it 
frequendy was, indefinitely, and with an enlivening effect, after the 
intransitive verb. 

See Abbott's " Shakespearian Grammar," rev. and enl. ed. p. 
150, § 226; Hales's "Longer English Poems," Notes, p. 236; 
Schmidt's "Shakespeare- Lexicon," s.v. "it." 

The meaning therefore is, " all plumed like ostriches, that run 
with, or before, the wind, flapping their wings {remigio alarum) 



362 MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 

like newly-bathed eagles." Steevens, in his note on the passage, 
says, " They (ostriches) are generally hunted on horseback, and the 
art of the hunter is to turn them from the gale, by the help of which 
they are too fleet for the swiftest horse to keep up with them." 

I suspect, too, that " vaulted," 1. 107, represents " vault it," to 
be construed with the infinitive ''rise" after "saw." Malone 
suggests this, and it is somewhat remarkable that he didn't see 
the other ear-word, " bayted." 

"An Anthony it was." 

In Antony and Cleopatra, 5. 2. 86-88, Cleopatra says of An- 
tony : 

" For his Bounty, 
There was no winter in't. An Anthony it was, 
That grew the more by reaping : " 

This is the reading of the First FoHo, 1623, in which the Tragedy, 
so far as is known, appeared for the first time. The name of 
Antony is spelt in the title and throughout the Play, Anthony. 
The "Cambridge" editors adopt Theobald's "emendation," "an 
autumn 'twas." 

If " An Anthony it was " is not right, " an autumn 'twas " is cer- 
tainly wrong. It is too tame for the intensely impassioned speech 
in \yhich it occurs, or, rather, into which it has been introduced by 
the editors. Again, if " autumn " could, by metonymy, be wrenched 
to mean the crops of autumn, it could hardly be said that an au- 
tumn grows the more by reaping. But this reading of Theobald 
has been silently adopted by all subsequent editors, without any 
consideration of its tameness or of the resultant incongruity. 

I think the Folio is right, as it sometimes is, and that there is 
a quibble in the speech, that has been overlooked. It is a patent 
fact in regard to the manifold and multiform quibbles in the plays 
of Shakespeare, that they are often indulged in by his characters 
while in the highest intensity of mind and feeling. The poet has 
been blamed for this, especially by the critics of the "correct" 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 363 

school, and his defenders have found some excuse for it in the 
general quibbling propensity of the writers of his time. But the 
best excuse for it is that it is true to nature, although I would not 
explain it on the theory set forth by Bucknill in his " Psychology 
of Shakespeare," namely, that "when the mind is wrought to an ex- 
cessive pitch of emotion, the instinct of self-preservation indicates 
some lower mode of mental activity as the one thing needful." 

To return now to the passage in question : " An Anthony it 
was,"; "it" stands, of course, for "Bounty." His Bounty was 
an Anthony, " that grew the more by reaping." 

Now, could not the " less Greek " which, Ben Jonson tells us, 
Shakespeare possessed, have led him to see in "Anthony" the word 
aj/^o?? and to quibble on the word as meaning a flower garden? 
His bounty had no winter in it; it was a luxuriant, ever- blooming 
flower garden. 

"Center" versus "Cincture." 

** Now happy he, whose cloake and center can 
Hold out this tempest." — King John, 4. 3. 155, 156. 

This passage is contained in the Bastard's speech, the conclud- 
ing one of the 4th x\ct, in which he predicts the many calamities 
that are to follow the violent death of the little prince, whose body 
has just been found by the courtiers outside the castle walls, from 
which he leapt down to make his escape. The above reading is 
that of the Folio of 1623, in which the play was printed for the 
first time. Pope, in his edition of Shakespeare, not understanding 
the meaning of " center " made a meaning, as he frequently did, 
and changed the word to "cincture," supposing the word as it 
stands in the Folio, to owe its form to the French ceintui^e. This 
change has been followed, so far as I know, by all subsequent 
editors, not excepting Knight, the most loyal to the Folio, and the 
editors of the " Cambridge Shakespeare," William George Clark 
and William Aldis Wright ; and Aug. Wilh. Schlegel translates the 
passage : "' Nun ist der gliicklich, dessen Gurt und Mantel Diesz 
Wetter aushalt." 



364 MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 

I claim that the original word " center," is right, and I should 
do so, even if there were no confirmatory uses of it elsewhere in 
the Plays, for the simple reason that it is Shakespearian, while 
"cincture," in such connection, is not. The sentence is, of 
course, metaphorical, and it would not be in the poet's manner 
to speak of a cloak and its girdle, or a coat and its buttons, or a 
hat and its securing string, holding out against a tempest. His 
mind was always too full and too vigorous, to move in that way. 
But all a priori argument can be dispensed with in the face of 
other and similar uses, in the Plays and Sonnets, of the word 
" center." For literal uses of the word, see the following pas- 
sages, in some of which it is used with qualifications, in others, 
absolutely, for the centre of the earth, etc., or for the earth as the 
centre around which the planets move, according to the Ptolemaic 
system of the heavens: M. N. D. 3. 2. 54; W. T. 2. i. 102; 
Hen. V. I. 2. 210; I Hen. VI. 2. 2. 6; Rich. HI. 5. 2. 11; 
T. & C. I. 3. 85; 3. 2. 186 ; 4. 2. no ; T. A. 4. 3. 12 ; Ham. 2. 
2. 159; metaphorically, it is used for the soul or the indwelling 
spirit, — the centre of the earthly body, — as in the following 
passages : 

" Rom. Can I goe forward when my heart is here? 
Turne back dull earth, and find thy Center out." 

— R. & J. 2. I. 2. 

This seems to be one of the many instances of Shakespeare's 
apparent intuitive feeling, for correcter views than were current in 
his day. The idea suggested is of the earth — symbol of the 
earthly body — at its aphelion, or the point of its orbit most 
remote from the sun, returning to it again by the force of gravita- 
tion to the common centre of gravity. — Singer (2d edition 1856), 
as given by Furness in his New Varr. ed. of R. & J. 

" Poor soul, the center of my sinful earth." — Sonnet 146. 

In the following passage from the W. T. i. 2. 138, "may't be 
Affection? thy Intention stabs the Center.", the word is generally 
understood to mean the soul ; but it means rather the centre of 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 365 

the thing aimed at. The punctuation is faulty in the FoUo. 
" Affection " is vocative. Leontes is addressing his own affection 
or imagination : ''May it be, Affection," (that) thy intention (used 
in hteral Latin sense,) stabs the centre, intuitively pierces the very 
heart, hits the white, touches the root of the matter ? 

To return now to the passage from King John. The Bastard's 
meaning is, that such dire calamities will sweep over the land that 
they will not only act disastrously upon the outward circumstances 
of men's lives, but will penetrate to their inmost being, and happy 
he who can stand out against them. 

"Meane it." 

''Lor. . . . How dost thou like the Lord ^tzjj/^«t7'j wife? 

lessi. Past all expressing, it is very meete 
The Lord Bassanio Hue an vpright life 
For hauing such a blessing in his Lady, 
He findes the ioyes of heauen heere on earth, 
And if on earth he doe not meane it, it 
Is reason he should neuer come to heauen ? " 

— The Merchant of Venice, 3. 5. 77-83. 

The last two lines of Jessica's speech read in the " Roberts 
Quarto" of 1600, . . . "meane it, then In" . . . and in the 
"Hayes Quarto" of 1600, . . . "meane it, it In" . . . the other 
Folios, as the First, the 3d and 4th Quartos, ..." meane it, In " 
. . . Pope, not understanding " mean it," changed it to " merit 
it," in his edition of Shakespeare, and began the next line with 
" In," and his reading has been followed by a number of promi- 
nent editors, some of them among the latest. The editors of the 
" Cambridge Shakespeare," in their note on the passage, in the 
"Clarendon Press Series" edition of the Play, 1874, pronounce 
the Folio reading " evidendy a conjectural emendation," and add 
" There is some corruption in this passage for which no satisfactory 
emendation has been proposed. That of Pope, 'merit it,' for 
' mean it, then,' is perhaps the most plausible. ' Earn it, then,' 
or 'merit them,' might be suggested. But we rather require a 



366 MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 

word with the sense of ' appreciate.' " Dyce reads, after Pope, 
. . . "merit it, In" . . . and says in a note, "So Pope; and so 
Walker, except that he reads ^'Tis reason,' etc., * Crit. Exam.,' 
etc. Vol. III. p. no," and adds "He evidently did not know 
that Pope had anticipated him in reading 'merit it.'" Hudson 
also adopts Pope's reading. Staunton conjectured " moan, it is 
In" . . . 

It is quite apparent that all to whom the subject has presented 
a difficulty have overlooked the force of " mean," understanding 
it in the usual sense of "purpose," "intend." But "mean" is 
the noun in the sense of middle between two extremes, as in 
"golden mean," (as a noun it occurs in M. of V. i. 2. 8, "it is 
no smal happinesse therefore to bee seated in the meane,") and in 
the passage before us is used as a verb (in the Elizabethan English, 
any part of speech was freely used as any other part of speech. 
See Introduction to Abbott's "Shakespearian Grammar"), and 
the pronoun " it " is used indefinitely, as was very commonly 
done after intransitive verbs, and especially after nouns used as 
verbs. For this use of " it," see Abbott's " Shakespearian Gram- 
mar," rev. and enl. ed. p. 150, § 226. See also Hales's "Longer 
English Poems," Notes, p. 236, and Schmidt's " Shakespeare- 
Lexicon," s.v. "it." And see, for numerous examples of the use 
of nouns as verbs. Appendix to Bartlett's "Familiar Quotations," 
6th ed. 187 1, p. 613. Marlowe's Plays abound with nouns used 
as verbs and followed by the indefinite " it." 

The passage from the M. of V. means, then, "it is very meet 
the Lord Bassanio live an upright life, for, having such a blessing 
in his lady, he finds the joys of heaven here on earth ; and if on 
earth he do not observe a mean in his pleasures, it is reason that 
he should never come to heaven." 

Clark and Wright, though they see a difficulty in the passage, 
and consider it corrupt, follow, in the " Cambridge edition," the 
reading of the " Roberts Quarto," ..." mean it, then In " . . . 
Though the sense is the same as in the Folio, the reading of the 
latter shows a nice revision, as by the substitution of " it " for 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 367 

" then," the more formal conclusive character which the latter 
word imparts to the impression, is advantageously got rid of. 

"An Unstained Shepherd with Wisdom." 

" Perd, O Dorides, 
Your praises are too large : but that your youth 
And the true blood which peepes fairely through't, 
Do plainly giue you out an vnstain'd Sphepherd [sic] 
With wisedome, I might feare (my Dorides) 
You woo'd me the false way." 

— The Winter's Tale, 4. 4. 1 46-1 51. 

All modern editors of Shakespeare, so far as I know, pervert the 
true meaning of the 4th and 5th lines of this passage, by changing 
the punctuation of the First Folio : that is, by putting a comma 
after "Shepherd," and omitting that after "wisdom," thus con- 
necting the phrase " With wisdom," with " I might fear." But it 
is properly, as indicated by the Folio punctuation, connected with 
" unstain'd," the meaning being " a shepherd unstain'd with wis- 
dom," that is, an unsophisticated shepherd, who, according to 
Perdita's meaning, says what he thinks, frankly, and without re- 
serve, and also without flattery. This construction had its origin 
in the inflected period of the language. For example, the Anglo- 
Saxon version of John, Chap. I. v. 9, reads : " S6th Le6ht wges, 
thaet onlyht aelcne cumendne man on thysne middan-eard," that 
is, " True light [it] was, that lighteth each coming man into this 
mid-earth," instead of " each man coming into this mid-earth." 

In present English, whose syntax is almost wholly logical, and, 
consequently, positional, when a participle or adjective qualifies a 
noun, and is itself qualified by a phrase, it is placed after the noun 
in order to bring it immediately before the phrase which qualifies 
it, and to the preposition of which it is the antecedent term. 

For numerous examples, both from Shakespeare and other au- 
thors, of the construction in the above passage from The Winter's 
Tale, see Abbott's " Shakespearian Grammar," § 419 a. 

Professor Child, in his " Observations on the Language of Chau- 



368 MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 

cer," § no, notes the following examples : . . . "whan these tres- 
pasours and repentynge folk of here folies . . . hadden herd 
what the messangeres sayden," . . . C. T. "Melibeus," Harl. text, 
3d par. from end ; i.e., folk repenting of their folUes ; . . . " doth 
digne fruyt of penitence," . . . C. T., "The Persones Tale," 6th 
par. from beginning ; i.e., fruit digne (worthy) of penitence ; "With 
kempe heres on his browes stowte ; " C. T,, 2136; i.e., with hair 
combed on his brows ; " oure grounde litarge eek on the porfurye," 
C. T., 12,703 ; i.e., litharge ground on the porphyry ; so in Gower's 
C. A., PauH's ed., V. i. p. 189, " o dampned man to helle," i.e., a 
man dampned (condemned) to hell. 

I have said that this construction had its origin in the inflected 
period of the language. But more may be said of it. The writers 
of the age of Elizabeth and James, and this is especially true of 
Shakespeare, wrote more synthetically and less analytically, wrote 
with less literary consciousness, than it is now the custom to do, 
and many of the peculiarities of their diction can be explained on 
this ground. 

Absorfhon of Cognates in the First Folio. 

There is an abundance of evidence in the First Folio that the 
poet, or, which is more likely, the scribe in writing from dictation, 
wrote by ear, and, consequently, omitted to represent to the eye 
certain elements that are more or less or altogether absorbed in 
pronunciation. William Sidney Walker, in his work on Shake- 
speare's Versification, notices this in the case of s, but it does not 
appear that he carried his observations beyond the sibilant. Dr. 
George Allen, Greek Professor in the University of Pennsylvania, 
in a valuable note he contributed to Horace Howard Furness's 
New Variorum edition of Romeo and Juliet, pp. 429-31, cites 
entirely confirmatory examples of the absorption of gutturals, 
nasals, and dentals, especially of the latter, and shows, quite con- 
clusively, that "we see defects in the original text where none 
exist, and proceed to amend them by thrusting words into the 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 369 

supposed gaps, when we should fully meet all the demands even 
of the modern eye by merely indicating [by the apostrophe] the 
actual presence of what has been treated as absent." 

I would cite the following from a very large number of such 
cases I have noted in my reading of the First Folio text : 

'* better I were not yours 
Then your [— yours] so branchless." — A. & C. 3. 4. 24. 

" His face was as the Heau'ns, and therein stucke 
A Sunne and Moone, which kept their course and lighted 
The little o' th' earth \j= O o' th' earth]" — A. & C. 5. 2. 81. 

" But, when the splitting winde 
Makes flexible the knees of knotted Oakes, 
And Flies fled [==Flies Ve fled] vnder shade," . . . — T. & C. i. 3. 51. 

The following all occur in one Scene of The Winter's Tale : 

•' But that our Feasts 
In euery Messe, haue folly ; and the Feeders 
Digest [^Digest it] with a Custome, I should blush 
To see you so attyr'd : " — 4. 4. 12. 

** The Mary-gold, that goes to bed with ' Sun \= with the Sun], 
And with him rises, weeping:" — 4. 4. 105. 

Here the absorption is indicated in the First Folio by the apos- 
trophe. 

♦' Your praises are too large : but that your youth 
And the true blood which peepes [= peepes so] fairely tlirough't, 
Do plainly giue you out an vnstain'd Sphepherd \sic\ 
With wisedome," . . . — 4. 4. 148. 

" The selfe-same Sun, that shines upon his Court, 
Hides not his visage from our Cottage, but 
Lookes on alike [= on all alike] ." — 4. 4. 457. 

** She's as forward of her Breeding, as 

She is i' th' reare' our Birth [=reare o' our Birth]." — 4. 4. 592. 



370 MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 

Here the absorption is again indicated by the apostrophe. 

" For [=Forth] this time Daughter, 
Be somewhat scanter of your Maiden presence;" — Ham. i. 3. 120. 

** Dis-mantle you, and (as you can) disUken 
The truth of your owne seeming, that you may 
(For I do feare eyes ouer) to Ship-boord 
Get vndescry'd." — 4. 4- 668. 

i.e.y " For I do fear eyes overt," open or watchful. 
"Over," followed by a " t," also represents "overt," in the fol- 
lowing passage, according to the First Folio : 

" To vouch this, is no proofe, 
Without more wider, and more ouer [= overt] Test 
Then these thin habits, and poore likely-hoods 
Of moderne seeming, do prefer against him." — 0th. i. 3. 107. 

i,e,y without more open, evident test. 

In the first citation, the " s " of " yours " is absorbed in the fol- 
lowing " s " ; in the 2d, the " O " in the following " o' " ; in the 
3d, the "v"in the following cognate "f"; in the 4th, the "it" 
in the preceding "t"; in the 5th, the "th" in the preceding 
" th " ; in the 6th, the " so " in the preceding " s " ; in the 7th, 
the "all" in the following "al"; in the 8th, the "o' " in the 
following " ou " ; in the 9th, the " th " in the following " th " ; and 
in the loth and nth, the final "t " of "overt," in the following 
" t " 

These examples, and I have noted hundreds of others equally 
conclusive, will suffice to illustrate an important feature of the 
First Folio text. 

The Ethical Dative in Shakespeare. 

The idiom familiar to classical scholars, known as Dativus Eth- 
icus or Ethical Dative, is of most common occurrence, in EngUsh 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 37 1 

Literature, in the Dramas of Shakespeare and of his contempora- 
ries. It occurs not unfrequently in Anglo-Saxon, Semi-Saxon, and 
early English, and it crops out occasionally in the literature subse- 
quent to the Shakespearian era, even down to the present day. 
Matzner gives examples of it from Bulwer's " Rienzi " and Carlyle's 
" Frederick the Great " ; and there are instances of it in the novels 
of George Eliot, and in the poetry of Robert Browning. 

The susceptible reader, whenever he meets with it, feels at 
once its force, as an enlivening touch to the expression in which it 
occurs ; but its rationale he would be, perhaps, at a loss to set 
forth. Matzner in his " Enghsche Grammatik," 2ter Th. p. 213, 
puts it quite satisfactorily : " Dieser ethische Dativ im engeren 
Sinne tritt als personhches Fiirwort der ersten oder zvveiten Per- 
son auf, wodurch die vertrauliche, gemuthliche oder lebhafte Rede 
das subjektive Interesse des Sprechenden oder des Angeredeten 
bei der Erwahnung einer Thatsache hervorkehrt, welche nach 
ihrer objektiven Erscheinung unabhangig von jenem Interesse 
vollzogen gedacht wird." 

Dr. Johnson, in his Dictionary, says ot the ethical dative " me," 
" Me is sometimes a kind of ludicrous expletive " ; and " It is 
sometimes used ungrammatically for // as methinksy.' The lat- 
ter is, of course, the A. S. tne thincth — mihi videtur, // seems to 
me ; so, methought, A. S. me thuhte, it seemed to me, and in early 
English, him thought, her thought, hem thought, it seemed to 
him, her, them. Rossetti, in his " Blessed Damosell," uses " Her 
seemed." 

Doctor Schmidt, in his "Shakespeare-Lexicon," s.vv. "I" and 
" you," presents quite an exhaustive list of passages in which the 
ethical " me " and " you " occur in Shakespeare ; and s.v. " your," 
he gives numerous examples of the word used indefinitely, that is, 
" not with reference to the person addressed, but to what is known 
and common," a use not unlike the ethical ; in fact hardly dis- 
tinguishable from it. Two or three examples of each must suffice 
here : 

..." he steps me to her Trencher, and steales her Capons-leg : 



372 MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 

. . . Hee thrusts me himselfe into the company of three or foure 
gentleman-like dogs, vnder the Duke's table : " — T. G. V. 4. 9. 
18. [Said by Launce of his dog.] 

"The skilfull shepheard pil'd me certaine wands, And . . . 
stucke them vp before the fulsome Ewes," . . . — M. of V. i. 3. 85. 

" Thou art like one of these fellowes, that when he enters the 
confines of a Tauerne, claps me his Sword vpon the Table, and 
sayes, God send me no need of thee : " — R. & J. 3. i. 6. 

" I will roare you as gently as any sucking Done ; " — M. N. D. 
I. 2. 84. 

"He be sworne 'tis true, he will weepe you an 'twere a man 
borne in Aprill." — T. & C. i. 2. 188. 

..." he will last you some eight yeare, or nine yeare. A Tan- 
ner will last you nine yeare." — Ham. 5. i. 183. 

" Your Serpent of Egypt, is bred now of your mud by the opera- 
tion of your Sun : so is your Crocodile." — A. & C. 2. 7. 29-30. 

" I will discharge it, in either your straw-colour beard, your 
orange tawnie beard, your purple in graine beard, or your French 
crowne colour'd beard, your perfect yellow." — M. N. D. i. 2. 95. 

In the following humorous passage from the Taming of the 
Shrew, A. I. Sc. ii. 8 etseq., it would seem that the use of the ethical 
dative was already beginning to come to the consciousness as an 
odd superfluity in speech ; Petruchio uses " me " ethically, and 
his man Grumio understands it, or pretends to understand it, as 
pertaining personally to his master : 

" Petr. ... I trow this is his house : Heere sirra Grumio^ 
Knocke I say. Gru. Knocke sir? whom should I knocke? Is 
there any man ha's rebus'd your worship ? Petr. Villaine I say, 
Knocke me heere soundly. Gru. Knocke you heere sir? Why 
sir, what am I sir, that I should knocke you heere sir. Petr. 
Villaine I say, Knocke me at this gate. And rap me well, or He 
knocke your knaues pate. Gru. My M' is growne quarrelsome : 
I should knocke you first, And then I know after who comes by 
the worst. . . . Better Hortettsio. Hor. How now, what's the 
matter? . . . Gru. . . . He bid me knocke him, and rap him 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 373 

soundly sir. . . . Petr. A sencelesse villa ine : good Hortensio, I 
bad the rascall knocke vpon your gate, And could not get him 
for my heart to do it. Gru. Knocke at the gate ? O heauens : 
spake you not these words plaine ? Sirra, Knocke me heere : 
rappe me heere : knocke me well, and knocke me soundly? And 
come you now with knocking at the gate? " 

From a large number of examples of the ethical dative I have 
noted in the dramatic and other literature of the Shakespearian era, 
I select the following from Marlowe, as being quite curious : 

" I went me home to his house, . . . I . . . took him by the 
leg, and never rested pulling till I had pulled me his leg quite off; " 
. . . " Doctor Faustus," 4. 6. Cunningham's ed., 1870. 

•'A lofty cedar-tree, fair flourishing, 
On whose top-branches kingly eagles perch, 
And by the bark a canker creeps me up. 
And gets into the highest bough of all." 

— Edward II. 2. 2. 

•* Even now as I came home, he slipt me in, 
And I am sure he is with Abigail." 

— " Jew of Malta," 2. 2. 331. 

" With that hee takes me the pensill, and with another colour 
drew within the same line a smaller than it." — "Pliny's Nat. 
Hist.," Holland's transl.. Book xxxv. p. 538, ed. of 1634. 

Abbott, in his "Shakespearian Grammar," does not seem to 
recognize an exclusively moral use of " me " and " you," but en- 
deavors to explain them always on a logical or thought basis. He 
makes no allusion, even, to the dativiis ethicus or ethical dative, of 
the grammars. His suggested explanations may be accepted as 
covering certain cases of what are generally considered as ethical, 
but they certainly do not cover them all nor any considerable part 
of them. 



374 MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 

Respective Constructions in Shakespeare and Writers 
OF HIS Time. 

There is a construction of language much affected by writers of 
the Shakespearian era, which may be characterized as a respective 
construction ; that is, a series of phrasal adverbs qualifies, respec- 
tively, a series of adjectives ; a series of adjectives qualifies, respec- 
tively, a series of nouns ; a series of verbs is governed, respectively, 
by a series of subject-nouns ; a series of object-nouns complements, 
respectively, a series of verbs ; a series of subject-nouns or object- 
nouns governs, respectively, a series of nouns in the genitive case ; 
a relative pronoun, representing two or more antecedents, governs 
verbs referring, respectively, to those antecedents, etc., etc. The 
following are good examples : 

" Faynt, wearie, sore, emboyldd, grievdd, brent, 
With heat, toyle, wounds, armes, smart, and inward fire." 

— Spenser's "Faerie Queene," B. I. c. xi. St. 28, 11. i, 2. 

That is, faint with heat, weary with toil, sore with wounds, em- 
boiled with arms, grieved with smart, and brent [burnt] with 
inward fire. 

•' For this, this head, this heart, this hand and sword, 
Contrives, imagines, fully executes 
Matters of import aimed at by many, 
Yet understood by none." 

— Marlowe's " Massacre at Paris," i. 2. 

That is, this head contrives, this heart imagines, this hand and 
sword fully executes, etc. 

'* And he that shall arrive at so much boldness, 
To say his mistress' eyes, or voice, or breath, 
Are half so bright, so clear, so sweet as thine, 
Hath told the world enough of miracle." 

— " The Traitor," by Shirley. 

That is, his mistress's eyes are half so bright, or voice so clear, 
or breath so sweet, etc. 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 375 

" Yet will I weep, vow, pray to cruel she : 
Flint, frost, disdain, wears, melts, and yields, we see." 

— Daniel's '♦ Sonnets to Delia," XL 

That is, flint wears, frost melts, and disdain yields, etc. 

'* They move their hands, stedfast their feet remain. 
Nor blow nor foin, they struck or thrust in vain." 

— Fairfax's "Tasso," 7. 55. 

That is, nor blow they struck, nor foin they thrust, in vain. 

"Virtue, beauty, and speech, did strike, wound, charm. 
My heart, eyes, ears, with wonder, love, delight ; " 

— Sir Philip Sidney. 

That is, Virtue did strike my heart with wonder, beauty did 
wound my eyes with love, and speech did charm my ears with 
delight. The sonnet from which these two verses are taken ex- 
hibits this trick of construction throughout, which, when carried 
to such an extent, becomes mere ingenious trifling, wholly incon- 
sistent with any sincerity of feeling on the part of the poet. 

Shakespeare occasionally employs this respective construction, 
as he does, with an easy success, all the peculiarities, aflectations, 
and euphuisms, of the diction of his time : 

*' If you can looke into the seedes of Time, 
And say, which Graine will grow, and which will not, 
Speake then to me, who neyther begge, nor feare 
Your fauors, nor your hate." — Macbeth, 1.3. 58-61. 

That is, who neither beg your favors nor fear your hate. 

•' though I with Death, and with 
Reward, did threaten and encourage him, 
Not doing it, and being done : " 

— Winter's Tale, 3. 2. 164-166. 

That is, though I did threaten him with death, and encourage 
him with reward, etc. 



3/6 MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 

" Sometime a horse He be, sometime a hound : 
A hogge, a headlesse beare, sometime a fire, 
And neigh, and barke, and grunt, and rore, and burne, 
Like horse, hound, hog, beare, fire, at every turne." 

— A Midsummer Night's Dream, 3. i. 111-114. 

That is, sometimes a horse I'll be, and neigh ; sometimes a 
hound, and bark ; a hog, and grunt ; a headless bear, and roar ; 
sometimes a fire, and burn, etc. 

*' The time was once, when thou vn-vrg'd wouldst vow, 
That neuer words were musicke to thine eare, 
That neuer obiect pleasing in thine eye. 
That neuer touch well welcome to thy hand. 
That neuer meat sweet sauour'd in thy taste, 
Vnlesse I spake, or looked, or touched, or caru'd to thee." 

— The Comedy of Errors, 2. 2. 1 15-120. 

Here, "unless I spake " is respective to the 2d line of the pas- 
sage, "(unless I) looked," to the 3d, " (unless I) touched," to the 
4th, and " (unless I) carved to thee," to the 5th. 

" and teach me how 
To name the bigger Light, and how the lesse, 
That burne by day, and night : " 

— The Tempest, i. 2. 334, 335. 

Here the two phrasal adverbs, " by day " and " (by) night," 
qualify " burn," with a respective reference to the two antecedents 
of the relative "That," "the bigger light" and "the less (light)." 

'* So Bees with smoake, and Doues with noysome stench, 
Are from their Hyues and Houses driuen away." 

— I Henry VI., i. 5. 23, 24. 

That is, bees are driven away from their hives with smoke, and 
doves, from their houses, with noisome stench. 

" But he loues Ccesar best, yet he loves Anthony : 
Hoo, Hearts, Tongues, Figure[s], 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. ijy 

Scribes, Bards, Poets, cannot 

Thinke [,] speake, cast, write, sing, number: hoo, 

His loue to Anthony y — Antony and Cleopatra, 3. 2. 15-18. 

That is, hearts cannot think, tongues speak, figures cast, scribes 
write, bards sing, poets number. 

" if Knife, Drugges, Serpents haue 
Edge, sting, or operation, I am safe." 

— Antony and Cleopatra, 4. 15. 25, 26. 

Here, " sting " and " operation " are inversely respective to 
" drugs " and " serpents," the meaning, of course, being, if knife 
have edge, drugs operation, serpents sting, I am safe. The order 
of both series of nouns was determined by the rhythm. 

" O what a Noble minde is heere oVe-throwne? 
The Courtiers, Soldiers, Schollers : Eye, tongue, sword." 

— Hamlet, 3. i. 158, 159. 

Here, again, " tongue " and " sword " are inversely respective to 
"soldier's" and "scholar's," the meaning being, "courtier's eye, 
soldier's sword, scholar's tongue." Either the words " soldier's " 
and " scholar's," or " tongue " and " sword," might change places, 
without disturbing the rhythm. But Shakespeare wrote syntheti- 
cally, and the derangement was purely accidental. 

" They are apt enough to dislocate and tear 
Thy flesh and bones."— King Lear, 4. 2. 65, 66. 

Here " flesh " and " bones " are inversely respective to " dislo- 
cate " and " tear " : to dislocate thy bones and tear thy flesh. 

" And will to Eares and Tongues 
Be Theame and hearing euer." 

— Cymbeline, 3. i. 3, 4. 

"Theme" and "hearing" are inversely x^'^-^^qXwq to "ears" 
and " tongues." 



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